All -
Positive Iomega Customer Service Experience
BTW, as if I wasn't depressed enough, one of the external Jaz drives where I work stopped spinning up on Friday. You put in the cartridge and the drive lights flash, but since the disk never starts spinning, you can't read or write to it.
Now this is a drive which is used a lot, gets passed around to various people and locations, and has worked well for nearly a year. But it's not working now.
So I called Iomega at 1-888-4IOMEGA to arrange for a return. I was half expecting some sort of service nightmare, based on what some people have posted. In fact, the experience was completely pleasant.
I went through the phone menu to select tech support for Jaz. I elected not to listen to information about online tech support, because I had already checked the website and there was no information relevant to this problem.
Before I was put in the queue for tech support, the recording informed me that if the product was defective and under warranty, I would not be charged for the call, but otherwise I would be charged $19.99, etc. I did not know at the time whether or not the drive was under warranty, but I suspected it wasn't. While I waited on hold (about 3 minutes) I got out my credit card.
When the technician came on, he asked me what kind of drive I had (internal or external), what kind of computer it was connected to, where I had bought it, and was it still under warranty. To the last question I responded that I didn't know.
He then asked me what the problem was. I told him the drive wouldn't spin up. He asked what the amber light did when the drive was on. I told him that it just kept flashing. He asked me to try disconnecting the SCSI cable from the back of the drive to see if the light still kept flashing.
Note that at this point, neither the tech nor I knew whether the drive was under warranty, yet he had not asked for my credit card number and was already troubleshooting the problem.
When we found that the light kept flashing with the cable disconnected, he said that it appeared the drive was defective. He asked for the serial number of the drive, which I supplied. Based on the serial number he determined that the drive was still under warranty.
He offered me two options. I could send the drive to Iomega and they would send me a knew one when they received it, or I could have a new drive shipped immediately, then return the old drive in the box the new one had come in. Of course, in the latter case I would have to give him a credit card number to secure the return of the defective drive. This is a standard practice in the industry.
I chose the latter option.
The entire experience was fairly quick, and certainly painless. Furthermore, I am perfectly satisfied with what I consider to be a completely fair resolution of my problem.
I don't know if things have changed, or what, but I remain a satisfied customer.
- Allen |
