I realize that there are always problems when you buy and consolidate brands- which is why I oppose most consolidations; that and lack of competition hurts consumer choice- but Vitec has really fallen down with this one.
I usually drive a full-size satellite truck but do maintenance work on the side and lots of the photographer stuff falls to me as the "real" engineers are busy trying to make the PSIP and Neilsen boxes work or something like that. I'm an experienced tech with 25+years in TV and I haven't run into customer service as bad as this- even Philips support for their abortive DTV equipment was better.
The following narrative has had some corners shaved off of it. When you start looking for parts numbers you don't always realize that you should take notes for that forum post you will be making three months later.
Way back in February I believe I started trying to track down parts for an Oconnor tripod and head. Repeated e-mails went unanswered and phone calls went to numbers that just rang and rang or voice jail that eventually cut me off. Finally I got a response from somebody who was filling in for my rep; they got me a parts list and by this time I was also trying to track down parts for a SOOM spreader. Same organization; different set of unanswered e-mails and lost phone calls. Eventually talked to my rep on what seemed like a tin-can-speaker-phone-mobile-phone serviced by a cell site in North Korea. I can't imagine taking a customer call on that line- they must not know what it sounds like on this end; I was on my desk phone, BTW.
Of course my order was wrong as confirmed by the invoices that eventually got e-mailed my way; a somewhat less rough phone call followed to correct the order and to give them my corporate card for what was now two orders (?) one for the Oconnor parts (which I told them to ship when the back ordered part came in, which would be about 30 days) and the order for the SOOM spreader parts, which were all in stock in NYC and would ship now.
Here we are a month later and no credit card charges have been made for either order; I've stopped going into the mail room in the morning to see if my stuff is here and meanwhile another another spreader got broken and has landed in the shop. One of the other guys took that on and I told him "good luck shaking some parts from the Vitec tree".
All told my order for parts was just over $300- I know to a big corporation that has just gotten bigger that doesn't seem like much, but still, it's $300!
Yes, I will call them next week to get the runaround from them as it's been a month since I gave them my CC number. I'm not expecting much at this point except apologies; if I ever see a box of parts I'll be surprised.
Face it people, your stuff isn't invincible- when it gets broken we need to order parts for it. Ignore my $300 order and I guarantee you I'll try to stop our Chief Photographer from placing that $3000 order with you, and to look around for a company with reasonable after market support. Trouble is, most tripods seem to come from a Vitec brand now. Thanks, capitalism!
Val
I usually drive a full-size satellite truck but do maintenance work on the side and lots of the photographer stuff falls to me as the "real" engineers are busy trying to make the PSIP and Neilsen boxes work or something like that. I'm an experienced tech with 25+years in TV and I haven't run into customer service as bad as this- even Philips support for their abortive DTV equipment was better.
The following narrative has had some corners shaved off of it. When you start looking for parts numbers you don't always realize that you should take notes for that forum post you will be making three months later.
Way back in February I believe I started trying to track down parts for an Oconnor tripod and head. Repeated e-mails went unanswered and phone calls went to numbers that just rang and rang or voice jail that eventually cut me off. Finally I got a response from somebody who was filling in for my rep; they got me a parts list and by this time I was also trying to track down parts for a SOOM spreader. Same organization; different set of unanswered e-mails and lost phone calls. Eventually talked to my rep on what seemed like a tin-can-speaker-phone-mobile-phone serviced by a cell site in North Korea. I can't imagine taking a customer call on that line- they must not know what it sounds like on this end; I was on my desk phone, BTW.
Of course my order was wrong as confirmed by the invoices that eventually got e-mailed my way; a somewhat less rough phone call followed to correct the order and to give them my corporate card for what was now two orders (?) one for the Oconnor parts (which I told them to ship when the back ordered part came in, which would be about 30 days) and the order for the SOOM spreader parts, which were all in stock in NYC and would ship now.
Here we are a month later and no credit card charges have been made for either order; I've stopped going into the mail room in the morning to see if my stuff is here and meanwhile another another spreader got broken and has landed in the shop. One of the other guys took that on and I told him "good luck shaking some parts from the Vitec tree".
All told my order for parts was just over $300- I know to a big corporation that has just gotten bigger that doesn't seem like much, but still, it's $300!
Yes, I will call them next week to get the runaround from them as it's been a month since I gave them my CC number. I'm not expecting much at this point except apologies; if I ever see a box of parts I'll be surprised.
Face it people, your stuff isn't invincible- when it gets broken we need to order parts for it. Ignore my $300 order and I guarantee you I'll try to stop our Chief Photographer from placing that $3000 order with you, and to look around for a company with reasonable after market support. Trouble is, most tripods seem to come from a Vitec brand now. Thanks, capitalism!
Val
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