Even then...how the heck do we know if a new product is going to be garbage until after we install it? With speakers, TV brackets, infrastructure hardware (racks and jacks and plates) we can usually continue to recommend the same products without worrying about changes to quality. With all of the electronics its a crap shoot.

I remember when we only sold Fujitsu...then our first non fujitsu job was all samsungs. That was when we found out that samsung no longer had a DB9 connector and we could never get exlink to work properly. Now exlink works just fine for serial control but at that project the ON command would not work so it was worthless and we had to go with IR. I remember when sharp would go one year with discretes and 1 year without and then back and then gone again.

Those are small issues that could be resolved but there are just as many nightmares like Phast. All we can do is do our research... try our best to spec good products. Immediately own up to any issues we discover and do our best to resolve the issue as quickly as we can for our clients. And if the manufacturer doesn't want to "make you whole" after dealing with junk product... put them on blast here at remotecentral so no one else gets burned by them.

Mac, I agree.
That's why I stated that if we recommend a product because we didn't know any better and it turns out to be crap, in our customer's eyes it's our fault.

O.P. was asking how to deal with original client if we recommend different product to original client's friend at a later point.

Need to focus more on YOU than the product.

20 years ago I took a CEDIA seminar and received some of the best advice:
"It's all crap! What you sell today which you are so excited about, you will be ripping out in a few years and adding to the junk pile."

Manufactures are getting worse, jamming in more tech and cheaper build. We need to sell ourselves and our services, less focus on the product. De-branding proposals, pitching ourselves as consultants who can source product, raising labor and moving equipment as cost plus handling fees, regardless of suggested retail price.

Our people come to us for trust and support, don't sell yourself short, and charge for all your services. "The black box, yeah they're all the same, do you have a preference sir?"

We can protect ourselves from being targets for their rage by NOT being a bandleader for a brand. Be enthusiastic, but not over the top fanboi. Some things don't change as much, but when they do, all we can hope for is that they didn't go from great to crap in one fell swoop. TVs are a great example- I like Plasma. A lot. While I'm far more interested in audio, seeing great video is good, too. I have a hard time being enthusiastic about anyone's TVs, now that Plasma is taking its last gasps. I won't lie to people and say that something excites me when they ask and tell them that they're changing faster than people want to keep up. Who wants to buy a TV that's made for 3d, find out that 3d is dead and then hear that 4K is the wave of the future in the space of 2-1/2 years? Conversely, who wants to sell that TV as being "great" and then having to field questions about how it stacks up against the current crop?

While competition for low cost drives a lot of the decisions for what is added/deleted/cheaped out when they come out with a new model year's offerings, I think the manufacturers need to look at the CI industry to find out what is needed. Retail customers don't necessarily know what they want or need and they find out, but only after finding out that a piece won't do what they need or want and it's too late to return it. Retail sales people at big box stores ask if the customer needs any accessories and then sell some POS/high priced cable that's a house brand and a Harmony remote that usually won't be programmed correctly.

I suspect that most people who are doing this now weren't in the business before price became the main factor in the decision to buy a piece of equipment. Before about 1983, customers would ask what we had and if they had owned or seen something different, they'd ask how that compared. We DIDN'T start by saying ours was $15 cheaper, we explained what ours did better. We told them about our experiences in servicing many brands and that what we sold came back far less than most, yet they may have been an innovation leader.

Manufacturers will always remove something from their products and consider the effect in terms of how many will prove to be defective. They used to aim for <1% but it seems that 2-3% is acceptable. I don't see it this way, but mass production comes with these problems, even when manufacturing is automated. One of the service techs I worked with used to answer "What's the best?" with "It's all crap". While I think that may have come from his generally negative attitude, it may have come from some of the training sessions he went to.

I think speakers have been the most consistent over the years, although I have tried to avoid most of the new brands until they have some kind of track record. Once I see that they have been sold, I usually back off until I can see how this affects them.

This is the same issue we are having with Onkyo AVR's. We havn't sold one in 2 years and have a 100% failure rate. Onkyo is supporting fixing the audio amp problem but it requires us to go to the house, put in a loaner and have the customer ship the bad unit to be repaired. 3 days later they call us and we come back and install the repaired unit. We charge a 1 hour service call for both trips. People are still pissed. Maybe we shouldn't charge anything.

Customer says, " what are you going to do about it?" We always say we are at the liberty of the products warranty and the product to do its job. I am honest with them and tell them we no longer sell that product and do what we can to take care of the client. 5 AVR's last month with issues. This problem is costing our company thousands of dollars. Providing a loaner, not charging to get the product fixed, but charging to install repaired unit. Is this unfair? I had to have our loaner repaired just to have a loaner.

And so we are back to start.

How do you not loose money or a client when stuff doesn't perform?
"What are you going to do about it?"

The answer should be:
"I'm going to sell you another brand this time and charge you to install it"

The client's expected answer is:
"I'm going to charge you nothing because it's under the manufacturer's warranty and I'm scared you'll go someplace else when I tell you it's not my fault and you should pay just like you pay with every other product you've ever bought, but somehow AV is different from IT and Auto and Appliances and Plumbing and Electrical and ......"

Maybe they should pay for the service call when we're supporting THEIR crap.

Nahhhhh!

Yeah right. We have some responsibility to do something. We did offer the system as the best to use. Nothing more embarrassing than product that we spec that doesn't perform. The Onkyo was the highest rated product in The home theater magazines for entry level product for years. Maybe an article that says how terrible the performance has been might change things. I can't imagine the Onkyo booth at Cedia had anybody visit.

|The answer should be:
"I'm going to sell you another brand this time and charge you to install it"

This is correct. However, You will still loose customers. Once they have it in there mind that you screwed up, you can't change it.

+1

We do have responsibilities, but the manufacturers should realize who's supporting them. Large retailers have a lot more clout, but most of the time, they sell this stuff on a cash & carry basis. If someone other than the GeekSquad installs it, they will be charged for R&R and the trip. If it's within the 2 week return period, it's still an inconvenience for the customer if they installed their own. Used to be that manufacturers paid dealers to provide service to the customers and if extra effort was legit, they paid for that, on occasion. Now, we could fly into the Sun and they wouldn't give a rat's ass.

When one brand has problems with the tuner and it needs to be sent back, one time isn't a killer. However, when every one of that model sold by the dealer requires being sent to a regional service center and they can't offer a time window for its return, customers will NOT be happy. Thanks, Denon. Lucky for me, one customer travels a lot and I could use the one I had as its replacement, if only temporarily. Ultimately, mine needed to be sent in, too. Good thing I tell customers to save their boxes for at least 6 months. Still, the time spent swapping this crap is time wasted and it leaves a bad taste in the customers' mouths. Then, there's always the time wasted on the phone with Tech (non)Support when a problem shows up and they say they have never seen it. I called the CI number and the guy was swamped because everyone else was either on vacation or at lunch. When I called back an hour later, I got a "Sorry we can't answer- your call means a lot to us, but we're closed". I was on-site! I tried to call Jeff Cowan and got basically the same and he never called back, either. So much for "Call anytime".

Hmmm We sell Onkyo daily and haven't been having any issues... Are those B-Stocks?


A couple years ago the place I was with dropped ANT##M Audio. 17 out 23 receivers had problems. We dropped them, and it was a real pain settling up with the company. We lost a lot of $$$ and credibility with our clients. The company promised to cut us a big check, and they'd pay frieght back to the factory---of course it didn't quite work out like they had promised...

Negative. Tx-nr606 and 515's

The rep calls all the time trying to convince me they have fixed the issue and the new product is great. Tell that to every single customer I sold a Onkyo to. They all have been sent off for repair. Every single one of them. including 2 I bought for myself. Some of them have been sent off for the second time. Onkyo should have a class action lawsuit against them. Beyond frustrating. It has become the joke of the office. "which customer will call about an issue this week?" Literally waiting for the other Onkyo's to go bad that are still in the field.

..Well there is that & they are sold EVERYWHERE cheap!

When you are talking control systems, its a different conversation. You kinda just have to ride out the bad, otherwise you will just end up servicing every system ever made.

Anything else is subject to change at any moment.

Prices and specs, yes. Reliability isn't a spec that should be allowed to change.