Onkyo Customer Service - For The Lose

[Serra]

Background:
For the last few months my Onkyo TX-SR805 (one of their best AV receivers for the price ever made IMHO) has been slowly dying, so I have been looking around at what's out. I like Onkyo's performance, look, and price point so I was inclined to start looking there, only to discover that the current 8xx-series that is sold for about the same price that mine was previously is now only THX Select2 rated instead of THX Ultra2 rated. This set me to investigating, because we are coming up on 4 full generations of improvements and component cost reductions since my box, but the sound quality is rated at 0.08% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) instead of 0.05% as it used to be FOR THE SAME PRICE.

Worse, even the next model up - a considerable price bump - is still no better. It turns out you have to spend nearly 3x as much to get the same performance that my 5 year old receiver had.

So I filled out a form on Onkyo's website asking them to explain why this is the case to me. I didn't question them aggressively, but I asked them to convince me to choose Onkyo again and help make me believe that Onkyo is still a brand name that is committed to quality.


The response? After TEN DAYS they blew me off! TEN DAYS to send me a stock e-mail that says "Why don't you call us instead of asking us to respond via e-mail"!


Thank You for contacting Onkyo USA Product Support.

We are experiencing a heavy volume of inquiries. We apologize for the delay in responding. Thank you for your patience.
In order to better assist you please contact product support using the number below.


Again, thank you for contacting Onkyo and Integra USA Product Support, if you need further assistance feel free to call us at:

Onkyo Product Support: 800-229-1687
Integra Product Support: 800-225-1946

Product Support Team Hours of Operation:
Monday thru Friday 9am to 8pm EST
Saturday & Sunday 10am to 4pm EST

Or visit our websites at integrahometheater.com, onkyousa.com or shoponkyo.com for product information, purchasing new and refurbished products, catalogues, hookup diagrams, authorized service & sales center locations, and warranty information.

If you need to contact our Parts, Customer Relations, Orders and Credit Departments for Onkyo Products, please call 201-785-2600.

If you need to contact our Parts, Customer Relations, Orders and Credit Departments for Integra Products, please call 201-818-9200.

Parts, Customer Relations, Orders and Credit Department Hours of Operation:
Monday thru Friday 9am to 5pm EST

"If you need further assistance..." ??! Of course I need further assistance, you didn't do a damn thing for me!

I'm just really disappointed in Onkyo over this and thought I'd let others know.

I fully expected they would just send me a PR fluff piece and that I would feel good for having tried to do my due diligence, but instead they just blew me off! They didn't even give me the number of a particular person to call - say, a product line manager or something... just "we know this is 10 days late, but why don't you call our general line instead. We refuse to dignify you with any kind of useful response unless we have to".

[Hondacity]

call them up

[Ket]

Thats people for you, and why I tend to avoid talking to 99.99% of the human population.

[Particle]

The response time is very lengthy, but I don't think I'd be so quick to dismiss them. A knowledgeable person on the phone is going to be able to address such a dynamic question MUCH better than a static email will unless they send you a novel.

[Serra]

The response time is very lengthy, but I don't think I'd be so quick to dismiss them. A knowledgeable person on the phone is going to be able to address such a dynamic question MUCH better than a static email will unless they send you a novel.

I do understand what you're getting at here, and I can appreciate their position in it. But I still think this was just a brush-off at best.

I had not expected an actual detailed response at all, I had anticipated that I would receive a PR fluff response, and I would have either accepted that or used the information they gave me to ask more pointed questions. They chose not to do that.

Maybe, like some other companies, they would offer to call ME to discuss it if I would respond to the person who sent me the response with my phone number and a time that would be convenient for me. They chose not to do that either.

Failing the above they could have, like most companies, given me the name and number of a particular person to call. Say, a product manager, someone who does a bit of PR, a supervisor of some kind. Anything, really. They did not take this path either.


Failing THAT they could have sent me an e-mail that didn't look suspiciously like a template, which also implies this is a regular practice on their side. But they didn't. And all I get from it is the number for the product support team... eg. Level 1 tech support. My prior experience as someone who sold Onkyo receivers is that they can help you if you have a setup question and they understand some of the basics, but they are totally unqualified to answer questions about why the THD rating is so low and typically do not have much history with the company to be able to put any questions in context.

So clearly I'm going to have to explain it all, get escalated, go through it all again... when I could have cut that time down by a sizable amount of time if I had just been given even the name of the person who responded to my question (which I was not).



But you know what burns me on this? I just called that number, and was told that it's tech support and that I want Customer Relations, which is an entirely different number.

[Nanometer]

I think you are being a little hard on them. Onkyo is a big company and I am sure they lack personnel to call people with technical questions. It is because of that reason they told you to call them instead of the other why around. If you were really curious about something and needed the information then you would call and I am sure your question would get answered and then some. But I think the joke could be on you ;-p , they want to leave their phone lines open for serious question, and perhaps you weren't serious enough to call in... I would be curious though if you could find another audio equipment company to respond in a different matter. Who knows, maybe there's a tendency in product integrity. As far as I'm concerned I am very pleased with my onkyo receivers and although the emails didn't get returned quickly, their repair service was pretty easy to deal with.