Sony admitted in October, four months after launch and sale, that "certain features or services of our new TV models are not available yet or functioning as intended and sincerely apologise for the delay". In the months between June and December customers have outlined here and in emails to Sony very clearly the problems and issues we experience with these televisions.
In the same period update dates have been repeatedly missed and pushed back. I have found dealing with Sony Technical Support (TS) a nightmare, as have others on this board, but I have found Sony Customer Service in Belgium to be professional and helpful.
Unfortunately when I get referred back to TS I end up getting no information - or even worse inaccurate information. I have concluded that TS are being asked to deal with issues and technical problems beyond their remit and which have to do with the coding and systems on the television rather than practical everyday support. Only recently I was called by TS to be told that Sony would include Amazon 5.1 support, which it knew about and referred to back in October, in a Deecember update. This has proved to be untrue.
Unfortunately such misleading statements coming after the repeated delays and newly introduced problems (e.g. blocking Amazon UHD for a while in December) cause customers to lose faith in Sony. Customers also lose faith in Sony when problems they have reported are never mentioned in communications about future updates - this leads us to wonder if Sony is including these issues or abandoning them.
I am told that Sony reads this board so I have a positive and helpful suggestion to make. In doing so I am assuming that Sony has noted all of the faults and failures present from the factory and which should have been caught by any competent beta testing. I am assuming that Sony has, as a result, got a list of issues to fix and an internal timetable for doing so. Clearly having launched faulty sets Sony has a responsability to all of its customers who trusted its advertising and statements about updates.
So my suggestion is this. Sony should produce a complete list of all of the issues it has been informed about and intends to fix. It is not enough to be told that Sony "have overcome the technical issues" (which should have been addressed pre-launch) or that they are working "tirelessly". Misled and disappointed customers need certainty and UK consumer law requires products to be fit for purpose and as described. In addition updates should be carried out with skill and care under the UK 2015 legislation - arguably the blocking of Amazon UHD a few weeks ago brings the level of care into question as I would expect Sony to test any updates against its pre-installed apps. I doubt whether any UK Small Claims court would see Sony's lauch / updates / communication / performance as "reasonable".
So can we have via your update app / other routes a list of problems you are workign on and the dates by which customers can expect to see them fixed?
For example, having been misinformed about Amazon 5.1 sound and strung along now for months it is reasonable to know what Sony plans to do and when. This should apply to the oher missing and non-functioning aspects of the TVs. I assume, of course, that Sony does have a road map for these fixes - sharing it with customers will provide some certainty. The alternative is a total lack of trust in Sony and loss of reputation and face.
I do not doubt that Sony employees are working tirelessly - although I am sure that the pre-launch development and management was an absolute mess as Sony acknolweldged it launched sets with features not working - and still not scheduled to work 10 months after launch. Clearly this is unreasonable.
So Sony, will this request for proper and full information get a repsonse? Or is Sony going to use us customers as beta testers for its 2016 range and treat us with contempt?
P.S. My latest request to Sony for information on when Amazon 5.1 will be fixed on the pre-installed app has been transferred again to TS - who clearly do not have the information to tell me. This is the sort of thing that can ruin a company's reputation and I would have thought that Sony, having admitted the problem honestly, should adhere to basic PR principles and come clean, provide full information which allows customers to trust the company again.
So how about it Sony?
