Nikon Customer Service Story

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Nikon Customer Service Story (Updated)

NOTE: I've left the original post as is and added an update that changes everything as a separate post down the thread.

I'd share this here for anyone wondering about Nikon Customer Service.

A good friend of mine just moved from the Northeast to Florida and is a part of a team of photographers I'm working with in a photography challenge league on another site I've talked about here before. The move caused her to have to miss the first week of competition, so when movers finally got her computer there it was missing the cable she used to connect her camera to the computer. So off to the local Best Buy she goes to purchase one, camera in-hand to make sure that it works (she's not the most technically minded person so having props always helps). As she's waiting in line for someone to assist her an older woman come up behind her, stumbles, grabs her arm, and dumps her D7200 and lens onto the floor where it suffers considerable damage. The old woman simply walked away oblivious. My friend, shocked at what had happened, attempted to get the attention of the woman who "did not seem in her right mind", and when that proved futile did not think to get someone from Best Buy involved even though it had happened on their property involving one of their customers. She brought the pieces home, contacted Nikon Service which gave her a quick estimate of about $600, and FedEx'd it out that evening.

We're now a little over a week since then and the bill came to a little more than $600. She was told that Nikon would throw in the cable she was looking for but then saw that they had not only charged her for the $10 cable but also $9 to ship it separately from the body and lens. Livid, she sent an email to Nikon Support explaining how disappointed she was with the experience and ruing the decision to stay with Nikon instead of switching to Sony when she upgraded from her D90 3 years ago. In the letter she also told the story of how the camera and lens came to their current condition.

This is where things get good. Shortly after the email she gets a response from someone on the "Resolution Team" apologizing for charge on the cable and telling her that they would be crediting her for not only the cable and the shipping, but because of the incident they would issuing her a one-time courtesy of repairing the camera and lens for free, with the promise that they would attempt to expedite the repair so she can get shooting sooner rather than later.

I truly believe that Nikon's service organization, like most others, operate on a strict set of guidelines, and I do not fault the service personnel when they simply do their job by the book they are given. But as I've always said it pays to complain when you have a complaint and not just simply bitch on the internet and take your punishment. Repair folks are not necessarily trained to service anything but equipment, so get hold of someone and be firm yet courteous in your complaint and more times than not you'll receive some level of satisfaction.

Unless, of course, you're dealing with Comcast or Verizon. LOL
 
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Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Thanks for sharing this Jake.

Would you mind sharing what this other website is? (the one with the challenges).
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Sure, it's dpchallenge.com. I've posted about it before here when talking about sites that give you categories to shoot in fixed time limits. It's been around for a while and I believe it's outlived its usefulness in its original form and the owner of the site and software seems want to make some of the changes necessary to keep it from failing. There used to be well over 100 submissions for each of the 3 weekly challenges but now they're lucky to get a couple dozen, which makes a 5th place honorable mention more of a participation trophy. I could get into more about what I believe works and doesn't work over there, but suffice it to say that the 1-10 voting scale has no definable parameters behind the "Bad" and "Good" at the two ends, so your photo is at the mercy of the voter who can give you a "2" with no explanation or need to critique just why they thought your image was such crap. I quit the site a year ago because of all this, but they restarted the 4th edition of a team competition and the folks that I had participated with in the past were the one great thing that I took away from the place because we would honestly evaluate the photos taken for each week's challenges and to a person we would finish well above our solo effort averages because we were all blind to flaws in our images or image choices that the others saw.

I encourage anyone wanted to participate in challenges like that to give it a shot, but the reason I didn't mention it is that I suspect that after the league competition is over most of the people who came out of the woodwork for it will sink back into it.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Thought I'd share this here for anyone wondering about Nikon Customer Service.

I truly believe that Nikon's service organization, like most others, operate on a strict set of guidelines, and I do not fault the service personnel when they simply do their job by the book they are given. But as I've always said it pays to complain when you have a complaint and not just simply bitch on the internet and take your punishment. Repair folks are not necessarily trained to service anything but equipment, so get hold of someone and be firm yet courteous in your complaint and more times than not you'll receive some level of satisfaction.

LOL

Thanks for sharing this. I ran a service team and a product support team and know this to be true. If you are not satisfied with an outcome make contact and express your concerns professionally. It is amazing how much difference it makes. This summer I had to fire a Neurologist. I simply explained that we approached things from a different viewpoint. Initially, he was angry, but once I finished explaining my position he apologized for allowing his ego to get in the way of a reasonable discussion.

Again, thanks for sharing that. It is so good to hear that Nikon has a team that will listen to reason. Too often all we hear are the horror stories.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
OK, folks. After having the camera for 2 weeks and giving my friend the cost of repair, and then the good news that because of the circumstances they would repair it for free, Nikon called this morning and informed her that the camera was beyond repair but that they'd be happy to sell her a refurb for $799 (which happens to be $60 more than B&H). They could not and would not explain what precisely made the camera irreparable nor would they send it back to her citing that it is somehow Nikon property and what they do with it is "privileged information" (likely something she agreed to when she checked a box on the repair agreement). She said it was like a kick in the gut.

Given the circumstances and that the rep told her, "We knew this on Friday but I didn't want to ruin your weekend", I told her to contact Nikon and let them know that, a) not only had she been lied to because she had received an actual repair estimate meaning that it could be repaired, but the lack of immediacy of the information just cost her a weekend where she could have been shopping for a Sony to replace it, and b) if the choice she was given after being told it would cost her nothing is to buy a refurb at a cost higher than she could on the open market then something is rotten on Long Island. Given the offer and the initial estimate I told her to accept nothing less than the refurb and the repaired lens (which I'm astounded could be repaired after seeing photos of the damage) shipped to her for the price of the repair quote she'd received last week, which was eventually agreed to.

We do not have all the facts but the way this has played out it certainly seems as if the promise made to her may not have been one the rep was authorized to make and this was the only way to backpedal. It's also ludicrous that Nikon does not send back your property after you've paid to ship it to them for repair and they deem it unrepairable. If anyone has any insight into that part please let me know because we'd like to get to the bottom of this.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
OK, folks. After having the camera for 2 weeks and giving my friend the cost of repair, and then the good news that because of the circumstances they would repair it for free, Nikon called this morning and informed her that the camera was beyond repair but that they'd be happy to sell her a refurb for $799 (which happens to be $60 more than B&H).

What?!! ::what:: I bought a new D7200 (body only) for $796.95 back in May when that body was on sale.

Can you explain more info about the checkbox that was marked? What did it say? I don't recall reading anything like that when I sent my D600 in three times. :confused:
 

Danno

Senior Member
I know you do not know all the specifics, but that seems like your friend is being misled. I am curious to hear a final outcome.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
What?!! ::what:: I bought a new D7200 (body only) for $796.95 back in May when that body was on sale.

Can you explain more info about the checkbox that was marked? What did it say? I don't recall reading anything like that when I sent my D600 in three times. :confused:

This is simply my assumption as I know there is some legalese that gets popped at you when you put in a service request. I tried to go back and walk thru the non-warranty stuff but it's a click-thru rabbit hole and I haven't gone all the way thru. To find where it might be.

I know you do not know all the specifics, but that seems like your friend is being misled. I am curious to hear a final outcome.

She's unfortunately not the most aggressive person when it comes to stuff like this and as I said she's in the middle of settling in to a new home, so this is just one more thing at the moment. She received the replacement D7200 she paid for yesterday and I think she's just trying to put it all behind her rather than pursue the return of the old body in the midst of everything else. So I'm guessing this is all we're going to know. Would love to help her out but I don't have the time at present to get in the middle of it.
 
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