Good product, utterly lousy support

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Philips Sonicare Toothbrush
★★★☆☆
3.1
40.0% of users recommend this
  • Ease of Use

  • Durability

  • Style

  • Service & Support

  • Value For Money

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IanLHarris's review of Philips Sonicare Toothbrush

“Good product, utterly lousy support”

★★☆☆☆

written by IanLHarris on 19/04/2015

We have been Sonicare users for more years than I can remember - certainly since before Philips took over the company. A couple of years ago we graduated to the HX6730. For the first time in our Sonicare lives, we had a fault with one of our devices - the charger failed, over the Easter 2015 weekend. That was the start of several hours of utter frustration and eventually anger. Initially the Philips support website was not working properly - except it only told us so after we filled all our details in on the form. Second time around, the system worked, but three days later we received a blunt e-mail from the Netherlands informing us that we had sent our details to the Netherlands and should have sent them to the UK. Nothing on the ".com" website tells you to go to a .co.uk website if you are in the UK, the .com site is fully in English and accepted our UK address without trying to re-route us. Even then, one might expect a global company to be able to forward the electronic details for us, but no. I e-mailed the Netherlands requesting that they forward the details to their UK colleagues, not least because I was away from the apartment for a few days and could not retrieve the serial numbers etc. again for several days. I received a daft phone call from the Netherlands sweetly informing me that it was absolutely impossible for them to acquiesce to my request. The Dutch lady went on to infuriate me by claiming that the data protection act prohibited her from helping me in this way. When I explained that the Data Protection Act is there to protect my personal data, not to shield her from doing a little bit of work with my data at my request, she merely repeated that my request was impossible. Several days later, I attempted to retype all my information for a third time at the .co.uk site and of course the system failed right at the end of the process again. After typing it all in again for a fourth time, this time through the "real time assistant" i.e. real person, I was informed by him that I was out of warranty by a few weeks. Given the lousy experience/service I had received, I asked him to escalate the matter to his managers as I am minded now to complain bitterly about Philips lousy service. He politely refused, stating that it is impossible to use discretion. He "helpfully" recommended their chosen on-line supplier of parts. In an ultimate irony, that supplier didn't even have the relevant charger in stock, although I did manage to find a suitable supplier myself through the Amazon site. We have two of these devices (two homes) and so many heads we really are locked in to this Sonicare model for a while, but we'll use up our stock and go elsewhere next time. In the good old days, Philips was a great company with great service - they helped me to keep my Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder going long after the warranties had expired and the product was no longer sold. Longevity was their watchword. Now they seem to be among the worst of the worst in terms of service. I shall be sending my complaint through their management and copying it to the Consumer Association.

  • More than 1 year

    Owned Product For

  • Ease of Use

  • Durability

  • Style

  • Service & Support

  • Value For Money

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