Nikon Service centre taking FOREVER.

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TGphoto

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Tom
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Hi,

I sent a lens to be cleaned by Nikon, they have had it for MORE THAN A MONTH and it has only just started being worked on.

In my opinion, this is absolutely terrible service.

Is this normal/has anyone else experienced them being so ridiculously slow?
 
Over 40 days for them to fix a fault in my D500 :(
 
If it's anything like Canon, they do the work not strictly on first come first serve, but on the level of membership you are on.

I have had mine from Canon in 4 days, that's sending out on Monday and back Thursday, but I also qualify for their Platinum membership.
 
It's ridiculous. I want to send a body in for cleaning as well but there is no time this year where I will not need the body for a whole month. They need to get more technicians, clearly.
 
Tom Green said:
It's ridiculous. I want to send a body in for cleaning as well but there is no time this year where I will not need the body for a whole month. They need to get more technicians, clearly.
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Catch 22 situation really, because if you qualify for their top tier membership you will get it back inside a week, but to qualify for that you normally require 2 of their Pro bodies. That's their idea, any pros will have a back up and they priorities "pros" first. If they can't meet their deadline, they will also send you a free loan equipment too.
 
'Application for the Nikon Professional Services scheme is open to anyone engaged as a full-time professional photographer (deriving their main source of income from photography) using Nikon equipment. You must live and be based professionally in the United Kingdom or ROI , and should own at least six pieces of professional Nikon equipment, two of which needs to be camera bodies.'

So you have to be a full time pro basically or wait forever, silly.
 
Its not ideal but I can 100% understand why they prioritise their Professional Customers, it probably doesn’t help either that in this day and age of “cheaper” electronics cameras/lenses are one of the few bits of kit that actually get repaired and not just replaced when faulty, I’ve had laptops, tablets and phones sent back into manufacturers for repair and waited ages too.
 
Like Chris says it’s not ideal but I can understand why they do prioritise working pro’s too. Could it be this time of the year is a busy point compared to other times? Sports seasons are just ending, wedding season is starting off so perhaps there is lots of pro kit coming in. I’ve used fixation previously and they were quite good and quick turn around.

They used to do Nikon Professional User but they have since stopped that. I don’t think it got you anything as such, just a card will pro user to wave about if you that way inclined.
 
Whatever the need to prioritise, 30-40+ days is totally unacceptable for a company the size of Nikon.
 
I sent my Sony A9 in for repair and it took no more than about 7 days. Guess Sony customer Service isn’t as bad as some make out. :D
 
It’s that second body that’s stopping me qualifying for Canon Professional services.... might have to consider the cheapest qualifying body, lol
 
JohnBradbury said:
It’s that second body that’s stopping me qualifying for Canon Professional services.... might have to consider the cheapest qualifying body, lol
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That's their idea, as a pro you really really ought to have back up therefore a 2nd body is a given from their perspective.
 
Sent my D750 to them to fix the known shutter problem earlier this month, from posting to getting it back took nine days.
 
Strange, going to phone them next week and find out what the situation is.

Whilst I do agree that a special quick turnaround service is essential for pro's, I share @gramps view that making others wait 30-40 days is a bloody joke. The equivalent to saying 'we couldn't care less about you'.

Looking at this thread, seems they're very inconsistent.
 
Raymond Lin said:
If it's anything like Canon, they do the work not strictly on first come first serve, but on the level of membership you are on.

I have had mine from Canon in 4 days, that's sending out on Monday and back Thursday, but I also qualify for their Platinum membership.
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I had my 1Ds2 back in a week after a shutter assembly replacement, I don't have any level of membership with them at all (back when I looked at that you were supposed to be a professional photographer but that doesn't seem to be the case now). That was for the Elstree location.
 
When i sent my d750 for shutter recall i think i had it back within 5 days door to door, then it had to go back as they broke it. that was another 7 days. i was happy with their service and communication tbh
 
Riz_Guru said:
I sent my Sony A9 in for repair and it took no more than about 7 days. Guess Sony customer Service isn’t as bad as some make out. :D
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Don't get me started on Sony's customer service or lack thereof.

@Tom Green - it's not unheard of for Nikon to take this long for non-professionals especially if you catch them at a bad time of the year. I have read quite a few reports matching your experience but in all cases they do a good job of it albeit being slow
 
nandbytes said:
Don't get me started on Sony's customer service or lack thereof.
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I guess customer experience differs and the varied responses in this thread also shows Nikon’s is far from perfect as well.

I base my experience having owned 6 different A7 bodies, 1 A9 body and over 17 different FE lenses..... all I can say is that Sony’’s customer service has been acceptable.
Also having the ability to transfer warranty between owners is a great bonus too which I believe Nikon do not offer.
 
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Riz_Guru said:
I guess customer experience differs and the varied responses in this thread also shows Nikon’s is far from perfect as well.

I base my experience having owned 6 different A7 bodies, 1 A9 body and over 17 different FE lenses..... all I can say is that Sony’’s customer service has been acceptable.
Also having the ability to transfer warranty between owners is a great bonus too which I believe Nikon do not offer.
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Doesn't matter how many things you own or have owned. What matters is how many times you have had to deal with Sony's customer service because something went wrong. Last time I dealt with them was 3 years ago and I appreciate things may have improved since then but at the time it was abysmal.

Also if you want to compare d**k sizes I have been shooting Sony longer than you have and been through more Sony gear than you have :p
 
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nandbytes said:
Doesn't matter how many things you own or have owned. What matters is how many times you have had to deal with Sony's customer service because something went wrong. Last time I dealt with them was 3 years ago and I appreciate things may have improved since then but at the time it was abysmal.

Also if you want to compare d**k sizes I have been shooting Sony longer than you have and been through more Sony gear than you have :p
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Of course it matters how many you have owned / used. If you’ve not had to send any back surely that shows an element of reliability in their product. ;)
I’m not saying customer Service is 100% great all of the time, was just sharing my experience.
My d**k is firmly tucked away, it’s yourself who has reacted by showing yours lol ;)
I have owned 2 Nikon bodies in the past and the only issue I had was not having the ability to tracker warranties.
Since I have owned 2 Nikon bodies and made it known does that mean I’m d**k waving again? Lol ;) :D
 
Riz_Guru said:
Of course it matters how many you have owned / used. If you’ve not had to send any back surely that shows an element of reliability in their product. ;)
I’m not saying customer Service is 100% great all of the time, was just sharing my experience.
My d**k is firmly tucked away, it’s yourself who has reacted by showing yours lol ;)
I have owned 2 Nikon bodies in the past and the only issue I had was not having the ability to tracker warranties.
Since I have owned 2 Nikon bodies and made it known does that mean I’m d**k waving again? Lol ;) :D
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2 nikon bodies, that'd make for a small one :D
I'd tuck it away if I were you. ;) :D

The only nikon body I have owned is D300 :D

Funnily enough Sony was quite good with warranties and customer service on electronic goods like TVs which was reason I initially bought their camera long time ago :D
Samsung on the other hand was useless, I ended up having to diagnose the problem myself and tell them what to replace with the part number!! :banghead:
 
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I think we are always going to hear bad and good stories when it comes to customer service etc :)
 
Riz_Guru said:
I think we are always going to hear bad and good stories when it comes to customer service etc :)
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100% and probably still more likely to hear the bad as those folk tend to be more willing to shout about it online!
 
I haven't had a lens repaired by Nikon, but have had a D500 repaired. They quoted 3 weeks but did it in 10 days. :) The prices I was quoted by a couple of other repairers, because the camera was so new, and they had never had one before, was 2+ times what Nikon ended up charging. :)

So good service for me, and I don't have the Nikon Pro Service. :)
 
I received fantastic service from Fuji and excellent communication and fastfirst rateservice from them.
Although I own a enormas amount of Nikon gear my only failure was over a decade ago and in all honesty I couldn’t expect the camera and lens to continue to work after the wind took it up into the air and dumped it in the sea at New Brighton:(
In all fairness the same has applied to my Canon and Olympus gear all extremely reliable.(y)
 
Sent my D810 to Nikon for a repair, they took 4 weeks to replace the PCB and then sent it back faulty, had to send it back again and they replaced the AF module. Was without it for about 10 weeks in total. It’s not so much the time it takes for the repair that’s an issue for me, it’s the fact that their updates are non-existent. On both occasions it went straight from ‘awaiting repair’ to ‘dispatched’ with nothing in between. I used to be a CPS member and found the Canon repair process much less frustrating.
 
john_e said:
Sent my D810 to Nikon for a repair, they took 4 weeks to replace the PCB and then sent it back faulty, had to send it back again and they replaced the AF module. Was without it for about 10 weeks in total. It’s not so much the time it takes for the repair that’s an issue for me, it’s the fact that their updates are non-existent. On both occasions it went straight from ‘awaiting repair’ to ‘dispatched’ with nothing in between. I used to be a CPS member and found the Canon repair process much less frustrating.
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That's more like the reality of Nikons repair service. Time and time again that sort of thing is heard. It should never be heard it should be totally unacceptable,but it is accepted by some people! And Nikon seem to have no qualms about bad service!
 
I think there'll be bad stories on all sides. I had come across a lot for Nikon and Sony. Not so many for canon and fuji in fact a lot good ones too for these two.

Having been involved in customer services it takes a fair amount of resources and investment to do it really well with a dedicated support team. Many companies many not have the money or the intension to invest as much so you get customer support on "best efforts" basis from teams that probably do more that just support work.
 
nandbytes said:
I think there'll be bad stories on all sides. I had come across a lot for Nikon and Sony. Not so many for canon and fuji in fact a lot good ones too for these two.

Having been involved in customer services it takes a fair amount of resources and investment to do it really well with a dedicated support team. Many companies many not have the money or the intension to invest as much so you get customer support on "best efforts" basis from teams that probably do more that just support work.
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When the costs start to be cut, customer service is usually one of the first things to be affected. :rolleyes: :(

Most companies will have bad stories, and it is generally the bad stories you hear about most.
 
john_e said:
Sent my D810 to Nikon for a repair, they took 4 weeks to replace the PCB and then sent it back faulty, had to send it back again and they replaced the AF module. Was without it for about 10 weeks in total. It’s not so much the time it takes for the repair that’s an issue for me, it’s the fact that their updates are non-existent. On both occasions it went straight from ‘awaiting repair’ to ‘dispatched’ with nothing in between. I used to be a CPS member and found the Canon repair process much less frustrating.
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Yes Canon are excellent for customer back up
I have used them twice over the years and they have been really helpful and fast
First was a fix price repair for my old 100-400 L completely overhauled the lens in a week and then less than a week to do a calibration adjustment for a body lens and two teleconverters
I can't remember what I paid but it was very reasonable
It's worth staying with Canon for that backup and peace of mind for me
 
Tom Green said:
Strange, going to phone them next week and find out what the situation is.

Whilst I do agree that a special quick turnaround service is essential for pro's, I share @gramps view that making others wait 30-40 days is a bloody joke. The equivalent to saying 'we couldn't care less about you'.

Looking at this thread, seems they're very inconsistent.
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for efficiency they would have the minimum technicians, better to be always busy than to have times where technicians are doing nowt. Very different aspect from customer service. Would it in reality stop you buying a brand at the sort of prices paid in photography?
 
jamesev said:
for efficiency they would have the minimum technicians, better to be always busy than to have times where technicians are doing nowt. Very different aspect from customer service. Would it in reality stop you buying a brand at the sort of prices paid in photography?
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It's all part of the end to end customer experience and after sales support.
Yes it would. If I was starting out in this area and they have crappy customer service I wouldn't buy from them. Would definitely go for someone more reliable especially in thier Comms like canon or Fuji from what I have heard.
 
nandbytes said:
It's all part of the end to end customer experience and after sales support.
Yes it would. If I was starting out in this area and they have crappy customer service I wouldn't buy from them. Would definitely go for someone more reliable especially in thier Comms like canon or Fuji from what I have heard.
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Or hope that the equipment doesnt develop any faults
 
jamesev said:
Or hope that the equipment doesnt develop any faults
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I am optimist hence I shoot Sony. My optimism doesn't cause any harm to my bread earning capabilities. If it did I wouldn't be so optimistic ;)
 
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