Introduction
Good customer service is everything to a successful business. There is no other sure method proven to get your customers coming back. You could slash prices back or give any kind of incentive but the end product will be that those customers attracted by these services will not last. Profitability could only be guaranteed by satisfaction of customer needs. If a customer is happy, they always give positive information to others ensuring that the business remains profitable. However, when a customer is unhappy, they spread negative words about the business discouraging other customers.
Discussion
PlayStation 3 has been in the market since 2006 and is produced by Sony one of the most reputable companies in the electronic market. The console is seventh generation and faces major competition from Xbox 360 made by Microsoft and Wii which is hosted by Nintendo. There is therefore a stiff tag of competition between the companies that market these products. To date, Sony has sold over 50 million units of PlayStation 3 world wide.
The machines have a warranty of one year which is typical for all electronics and research done indicated that it has a 10 percent chance of failure in two years which according to experts is within the normal range expected. However, there is an indication that the machine has other vulnerabilities that are evident by the appearance of a yellow light that indicate a non-specific failure. In 2009, BBC aired a report about “yellow light of death” in a program known as watchdog which claimed that the problem was revelatory of the imperfections in the console, however, the problem only occurred in only around 0.5 percent of cases in the UK. Ray Maguire, who is Sony UK’s managing director, issued a counterargument that the cases were very minimal and could not conclusively indicate manufacturing defects. He also stated that the television program was meant to harm the company reputation.
The company services machines that are broken due to mechanical failure but not those resulting from abuse or misuse. There is however a cost attached to the service that is aimed at covering the shipping costs for the out-of-warranty machines. Otherwise, if the machine is within its warranty period, the company services it free or replaces it with another machine.
The company had a scare in the year 2010 that made it impossible for users of the machine to sign in to their machines and play games that were on the internet. It was further complicated when those who had installed offline games could not play them. The system clocks in the machines reset themselves to December 31, 1999. The problem was nicknamed the leap year bug that could not associate with leap years and since 2010 was a leap year, the machine failed to capture that fact. Sony, however, released a PS3 system software update 3.40 that made it possible for the error to be successfully corrected.
Sony has in the year 2011 published a new set of PSN terms of service (PlayStation, 2011) that has caused an uproar on the internet since they are viewed to be sterner and require customers to purchase them all over again. The terms prohibit the usage of Non-Licensed Peripherals that are not associated with the company was introduced.
Sony has a 24 hour dedicated customer service number that requires a person to press some numbers before speaking to a person rather than the machine. This has caused some people to complain that the service is not reliable. There are those who point to the fact that whenever they call the numbers, they expect to talk to people and not machines.
There is also the aspect of the company threatening to cut off ‘jail breakers’ of the machine (Techdirt, 2011). These are people who do not associate with the PlayStation 3 network and opt to leave it. The complaints that have arisen from this remark are because the company seemed to be prohibiting the usage of features it has promoted.
Recommendations
In a bid to improving the service the company is offering, there are a few recommendations that if implemented would go a long way in improving relations. First, Sony should make sure that whenever a person calls the customer service number, they actually speak to a human being instead of a machine that usually stalls people for some time (Spector and McCarthy, 2005, p. 204). Secondly, the company should keep the promises it makes to customers and be honest with them. Threatening to cut people off their network for usage of features they have installed goes against this factor. A third factor is listening to customer complaints and opinion and acting on them promptly.
Customers also expect help even in the most trivial issues. The company should train its customer relations staff to be helpful. Exercising patience with customers who may seem to have small issues may make a very big difference in terms of sales (Robbins, 2009, p. 208). The staffs have to be praised in creative and helpful manner. Finally, the company should make sure they have an incentive that attracts customers. Coupons, discounts, additional information about the usage of their product, or even courteous staff could make a difference. Incentives do not have to be large but they may cause a lot of customers’ immense happiness leading to increased sales (Zemke, 1998, p. 266).
Good customer service improvement relies on the consistent implementation of these recommendations. The result will be many happy customers and increased sales.
References
- Playstation. (2011) Terms of Service. Web.
- Robbins, S.P. (2009) Organizational behavior: global and Southern African perspectives. Cape Town, Pearson Education South Africa
- Spector, R and McCarthy, P.D. (2005) The Nordstrom way to customer service excellence: a handbook for implementing great service in your organization. New Jersey, John Wiley & sons, Inc.
- Zemke, R. (1998) Best practices in customer service. New York: AMACOM