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Xerox: world's worst customer service
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/21/2005 - 10:38.
Xerox has the world's worst customer service, largely because they have the world's worst IT infrastructure.
I've been trying for two days to get a toner cartridge for my printer/copier (which is a terrific piece of equipment). But Xerox has a maze of disconnected phone and Web services that don't work with each other or with the company's internal customer tracking and billing systems.
One example of utter insanity: I can access my account online, which shows a balance of zero (I don't owe any money). But when I call to order a toner cartridge, I have a "credit lock" on my account and the order can't be processed. The person I am talking to has no idea why. He just shunts me over to billing, where after navigating phone mail hell for a while, I'm told by the voicemail system to hang up and try again. Nice.
More utter insanity: I went online a few days ago to pay my bill, and I could not pay online because my account was "locked." No one knew why. In this day and age, you have to wonder about a company that refuses to take payments online.
When I finally got to someone on the phone who could actually take a credit card payment, they told me it would take "two days" for the billing system to process the payment. Huh? I can pay someone in Belgium for something and they get the money in their bank account about fifteen seconds after I hit the Submit button on my Web browser. But a high technology company can't move bits around any faster than two days?
But wait--there's more. I have a service agreement that includes supplies, but as far as I can tell, there is no way to order prepaid supplies online. You would think they would try to drive transaction costs as low as possible, but no, they apparently like high service costs AND annoying customers with toll free numbers that don't work and voicemail systems that never get you to the right person.
This is an IT department failure of the highest order. Xerox is losing millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars a year from these systems. The IT department has hijacked the entire company, saddling it with expensive and ineffective systems that drive away customers.
Even sadder: it is obvious no one in the company has ever tried to use its own customer service systems.
Update (2/21/06)
Two people from Xerox contacted me and asked if I was continuing to have problems--I have not. They said my postings had triggered an internal review of their customer service procedures and they were working to try to ensure that I or any other customer did not have this kind of experience again.
Good for them.
I'm delighted with the copier-printer I have. It cost more than the cheap laser printers you can buy in OffficeMax for a few hundred dollars, but it has been worth every penny. It prints and copies reliably, never jams, and I can get it fixed if something breaks. I'd much rather buy from a company that is willing to say, "Boy, we screwed up but we want to try to fix things," than a company that will not acknowledge that, or worse, that you can't even contact for help (I bought the Xerox printer after having horrible experiences with a Samsung printer).
Will my next printer be a Xerox? Yes--the quality and reliability, the ability to get the machine repaired, along with a company anxious to do better makes it a no-brainer.
Phaser 6100 - terrible service
I have been trying to have a service technician come to look at our printer since before Christmas (it's now Jan. 9). The "technical support" was by phone and they just wanted me to try to fix the machine by seeing what was working and what wasn't. They decided to send me a new toner to replace the one I had (the printer was leaving marks all over the docments and then there was a blank space that looked like a black thumb smudge across the side of the paper). After receiving the new toner and returning the old one to them (which thankfully they didn't charge me for) we found that it didn't change any of the problems.
The next decision was that I needed a new fuser and a new imaging unit at the cost of about $200 each (still couldn't get anyone to come to look at the machine). When the fuser got here, it wouldn't work. They said it was probably from being outside so I waited until the next day, at which time they finally sent a technician when the fuser wouldn't come on.
FINALLY - the technician looked at the printer and found that there was a tear in the transfer belt. So now I need to order that (another $250). I can't return the fuser because it's already been opened, even though I didn't need a new one. I tried to reach someone in customer service that could assure me that the imaging unit, which I haven't received yet, could be returned for a credit. After 3-4 hours (on hold for over 45 minutes) with different prompts, they finally agreed I could refuse delivery of the imaging unit and have it returned - hopefully we'll get a credit for it.
Now I'm ordering the transfer belt, but because I'm using my employer's credit card and the billing address is not the same as the delivery address, they now say they need to send the imaging unit to my employer's home. I didn't have that problem when I ordered the other 2 parts last week but now all of a sudden they can't send this part to the office. They said the other things were ordered from a different department.
Why are we paying for a service contract if they won't send a service technician out until we've spent almost 3 weeks on the phone trying to figure out what's wrong with the printer? VERY UNSATISFIED. If it were my printer and I was paying for it myself, I'd trade it in for one where the service and supplies were local and we could get prompt service. This is no way to run a business.
I AGREE, I WORK IN CCO/
I AGREE, I WORK IN CCO/ XEROX CAPITAL SERVICE, NOTHING IS DONE TO HELP US; ONLY MAKE YOUR TARGET.