Bad customer service

Yesterday, I bought a Canon 5DMkII here in Germany, where I live. In the box there was a user manual in German,

Italian, French and Dutch, unfortunately, not in English. The salesman told me that it was no problem, all I

needed to do was ring Canon and they would send me one.

 

Well, they have none in Germany, so they say, although, here in Frankfurt there are thousands of English-speaking

inhabitants who buy cameras. I phoned Canon UK. They have a separate company that will send me one for 16 pounds

plus postage. This is after I have just spent 3,300 euros for camera and 24-105.

 

I then had a long conversation with one of the people high up in customer service in Germany, who could only talk

about the bureaucratic impossibility of getting a manual to me, free, in English. He was obviously not prepared

to do anything about it.

 

I asked him what he understood by customer service, since pretty obviously it is quite different from my

understanding. All I want is a user manual in my own language, and they can't even be bothered to arrange that

very small thing - too many bureaucratic obstacles.

 

I am new to Canon, and I am shocked by their lack of customer service so far. How hard would it be for a

customer-oriented company to get a manual to me, free of charge, as part of setting up good relations with a new

customer, whose only 'fault' is to be English and living in Germany.

 

Given that every time you telephone Canon they claim to be very concerned about providing excellent customer

service, it seems that this is just one more corporate lie.

Yes, that is bogus imo.

 

Even considering you want English in Germany...

 

Seems like Canon could go the extra inch.

In the mean time, just download it off their website.

Canon is not alone. I'm in Canada and recently bought a Sony point and shoot camera. I printed out the user manual but

wanted a real one-they don't have them here in Canada and Sony in the U.S. has them but won't ship outside the country.

A big company like Sony and I can't get a manual? Nice. cb :-(

Go the Canon USA web site: http://www.usa.canon.com/home. Navigate to the EOS 5D Mark II. Select "Drivers and Downloads." In the "Guides and Manuals" section, download the EOS 5D Mark II Instruction Manual. Voila, you now have the manual in English, all 228 pages!

Ben,

 

yes, I can do that ...but, the original manual is nicely portable and easy to navigate. I have a small, not unreasonable, wish. I would have thought it fairly easy to fulfil.

It was arguably the same here in Tokyo. But the sales people were pretty apologetic about it (which is pretty much normal here), and I felt pacified enough that there was no need to elevate the situation. I somewhat expect that in a totally non-english speaking country, but in Germany? Luckily, I got an english manual for my mom's IXUS (less demand, perhaps?).

Interesting that German shops do not provide English language manuals. I have purchased Canon pro bodies and L lenses in

China, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines - and all came with English documents.

 

Agree that your experience demonstrates pretty apathetic (pathetic) customer support.

Du solltest Deutsch lernen :P

<br><br>

According to EU law you can give the product back if it doesn't have a manual in language you're speaking. But who

would give 5D Mark II + 24-105 back just because of manual... Why don't you just download one for free from canon's

web site? Digital cameras are so easy to operate that after reading it once you won't need it again. Even custom

functions are described on LCD while viewing.

I must say I am surprised they even bother to print one without English, all the UK ones have all the euro languages in after all, why print ones that specifically exclude English with all the additional overhead.

 

Robert, just download one. Camera manuals are very much a read through once or twice and then that is it, probably not even once if you have had a recent EOS camera before.

Ich kann Deutsch sprechen und lesen, aber Ich wurde viel lieber in meine eigene Sprache lesen - es ist einfach so viel schneller.

That's true. It is easier to read it in your "mother tongue". I was reading EOS 40D manual in English though. In the

past I found some mistakes in translated manuals (especially annoying if you use film camera). Since then I read

only English manuals because these are usually the best translations.

Robert,

 

I understand your frustration & disappointment. I've encountered (and still encounter) many similar situations - and

although I don't like it either, I have come to understand the "logic" behind it.

 

In my opinion it comes down to "systems". Canon (along with many other mass manufacturers) gets the best return

on their investment (and can inflict the most "competitive damage" on their competition) when things are

as "systemised" as possible. Optimised systems give efficiency and leverage.

 

From Canon's point of view, "utopia" would be the manufacture of, say, 100,000 5D2 units - offload them through the

distribution channels - and then not have to provide any support or repairs; It's more profitable for them to pay a

person a salary who can make decisions that deal with the issues of selling 1000 units (or 10,000 units) than it is for

them to pay a person to deal with issues affecting the sale of ONE unit.

 

Put another way - issues that "break the system" and create one-on-one problems are a real thorn in their side - they

reduce the efficiency of their systems and suck-up profits - which is why so many organisations now try to push -

pull - shove - intimidate - "what-ever-it-takes" to make YOU conform to THEIR systems rather than make exceptions

to their way of doing things for individuals.

 

I don't like it one bit either; we get pulled in to the vortex that surrounds products like there - "we're Canon men - and

damn proud of it" We give them our loyalty and out money - and assume that that is important to them, but I've

learned the hard way that it really counts for very little. No doubt your (and my) business is important to them, but

only to the point where they make more money shoving aside "system breaking exceptions" like you and I to sell

more units to the "conformists".

 

There was a time when when we bought our groceries from the corner dairy where - if we wanted them to get

something special for us, they were only too glad to try and help; These days we shop in big supermarkets where

the economics of scale make them unwilling to go out of their way for someone who wants something that's

uneconomic for them to pursue. Unfortunately most of the corner dairies have long gone because we prefer the lower

prices offered by the big supermarkets - but we're quick to forget that these lower prices come at the expense of

individualised service & attention - and these organisations will go to great lengths to keep you on the "straight and

narrow" with respects to their way of doing things. Same with cameras.

 

All I can offer by way of experience is "pick the battles that you can win". I've been through many examples of getting

all "poo-faced" - complaining to managers - writing letters - changing brands etc - at the end of the day, unless it's

going to have a SIGNIFICANT effect on their bottom line, they're not interested - and the bottom line is we end up

cutting off out noses to spite our faces. Do we like it? No. Should we let them get it all their own way? That's an

individual choice. Personally, I've long since come to realise that they're not worth the hours of my life I'm going to

waste to get a "null" result. Despite what you might think, I AM a very loyal Canon man - have been for a very long

time. And yes, I have had times where they've pulled a "rabbit out of the hat" for me - but I none-the-less respect my

position as just a single customer - a very small cog in a very large machine; and in as much as I'd like to believe in

the power of "many of us small cogs adding up to be a very important part of the machine", the reality is that the vast

magority of these small parts don't require the same amount of attantion that we feel we do. "Divided we fall" (or fail) -

unfortunately, that's the reality.

 

My suggestion would be to either print off an electronic version - of cough up some dough to get a genuine English

version - and divert your disappointment and anger into getting out and enjoying the camera. As I say - I understand

fully where you're coming from - I agree with you - but I understand why they do it this way. Although I don't want

to encourage this practice of letting them totally dictate the terms, I'm none-the-less not going to waste any

portion of my remaining years starting a 1-man cruisade. Perhaps they win this round - but you still have a great

camera. Go end enjoy it eh?

 

Hope this helps :)

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

 

Colin- one of the points of having 'customer service' is to deal with those individual situations that don't fit into the system;

when the reply back from them is to insist that you fit in with their requirements, it makes 'customer service' a misnomer.

Perhaps a better description would be 'the department that tells you that you can't have what you want because it doesn't fit

in'. In my case, I didn't waste a lot of time after a couple of emails-I just decided that after buying Sony products for years

that as each item comes up to be replaced, they won't be Sony products. cb

<p>Charles,<br>

I agree with you, but unfortunately, that's the way these companies often decide to play it these days.  The bottom line is ... the bottom line, in that "there's more money to be made by culling off the time-consuming minority" than there is in "wasting time on individual exceptions".<br>

To quote your Sony example, the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">only</span> thing changing brands will achieve is that you'll end up with a different brand - you'll probably feel a small sense of "I showed them" - and ironically, you'll probably end up with products that offer much the same features and functions, or possibly have a bad "customer service" experience with them too at some point, but unfortunately it's unlikely that enough people will ever vote with their wallets to ever truely bring them to their knees. Freedom of choice works both ways.<br>

At one stage in my life I was passionately devoted to completely blacklisting companies that gave me bad service - only problem was, I started running out of companies to deal with - and for all my complaining, I don't think I ever made an ounce of difference to them.<br>

Cheers,<br>

Colin<br>

 </p>

sorry to hear about your experience. i used to work at a canon service center, i know if you would have talked to my boss he would have shipped you a manual for free. When i was there my boss told us to do whatever it took to make the customer happy, including going out of our way. so it sounds like you just got unlucky.

I have the same problem. I live in China, and though the 5D I bought here a few years ago came with two manuals, one in English and one

in Chinese, the cameras I have bought in the past few months (a 50D and a 5DMkII) have only come with Chinese manuals. Like the OP,

虽然我能看、讲中国话I prefer to have the manual in my native language, and though I can (and have) use the downloaded PDF, a manual

you can bung in your camera bag for that odd problem that pops up in the field away from your computer would be a benefit. Canon China

is of no use; I wonder if Canon USA would be a better bet?