Over 10 years later and Sony continues to not give a crap about their customers

Over ten years ago I wrote about two separate incidents (this one and this one,) I had with Sony customer service. The first involved a Sony camera given to me as a gift by a friend in Japan. The second incident involved a Sony boombox. In both cases, Sony expressed absolutely no interest in helping resolve the issues. This should have come as no surprise since I had read in a business book that one thing Sony is not known for is customer service.

Recently I had yet another opportunity to experience how Sony feels about its customers. Wanting to believe that most strive to do better, I was curious as to how this incident would play out. I attempted to purchase a $10 game for our Sony PlayStation. The PlayStation Store successfully charged my card but the game would not download. In fact, the PlayStation Store actually indicated that the app was installed. Multiple checks determined that was not the case. The PlayStation Store would not even offer the option to download it since it believed it was already installed.

I attempted to call Sony only to find that the wait time would be 30 minutes. Not being interested in spending 30 minutes on an issue with a $10 game, I instead disputed the charge with my credit card company. I explained what had happened. They said they would contact the vendor. A week later, I get an email from Sony indicating that because I disputed the charge, they were permanently suspending my PlayStation Network account. That account is one for which I have already paid (it’s a yearly subscription) and has nothing to do with this $10 game.

Now that’s shitty a customer experience. These two things have nothing to do with each other and permanently suspended is a pretty severe term. Disputing a charge is a violation of their Terms of Service? This sounds like Steve Martin’s old joke about the solution to the problem of overpopulation: death penalty for parking violations.

There was a link to click should I want to resolve the matter. That lead to a contact page where I explained what had happened. Later today I received another email from Sony indicating that my account was no longer suspended. Great. At least someone at Sony was reasonable but the way this was handled by Sony from the get-go was horrible.

Sony is nothing if not consistent apparently. When a customer has a problem, resolving it in a friendly and helpful manner is not their first instinct. That’s unfortunate. I think most people have come to expect that customer service will be poor and thus are unsurprised when they receive it. It did, however, remind me of just how valuable good customer service is. If you want to have a good, long-term relationship with a customer, providing good customer service is essential. At my company we strive to provide it and I believe that we do. I rarely ever hear about complaints. In fact, I literally cannot remember the last time that happened.

Because Sony’s customer service is so bad (and if you think I’m overreacting, you haven’t read my two original posts, this one and this one, about this), I make an effort to avoid doing business with them when I can. When stories come up about customer service, this is the first one I immediately think to share. This is what bad customer service does to a brand. It erodes it.