Let me first say that we regret causing techieman33 to feel as though his problem was not going to be resolved satisfactorily. It has been recorded in our
system and steps have been taken to rectify it completely. If it appeared otherwise for a time, that is perhaps due to our poor communication and not because we purposefully would abandon a customer in their time of true need.
Towards the goal of getting this resolved, the following steps have been taken.
- The plastic end caps which were not in stock in the USA, have been ordered from the factory. We don't have a firm ETA on them yet but should know more early next week.
- We asked the customer for his mailing address had planned to ship him the plastic cut-out at our expense when the item arrives in the USA. (In light of things read here, that may need to be revisited now.)
- Our factory has been made aware of the problem so that they can double-check all manufacturing and QC procedures. If there are any loose ends that can be tied up to prevent this recurring, they will do so.
Nobody at
ENTTEC is disputing the historical record here, but there is a significant gap between the interpretation of these events presented above and our own.
The customer's first contact with the
ENTTEC team was with a customer service person, not a technical support team member, and she was absolutely correct that before an RMA can be issued someone from our technical side needs to look at the relevant details of the case and assess how best to remedy the problem.
Full
Compass correctly referenced
ENTTEC's policy to avoid promising their customers a brand new
unit without some communication between our various entities beforehand. This stops the practice of treating a software problem or
driver conflict with the issuance of brand new hardware that won't behave any differently until the root problem is solved. It's a very useful policy, but perhaps there will be
times when it is too constraining to
cover every situation equally well.
It's completely true that after hearing what the problem was, we suggested to the customer that we would prefer to
send a replacement piece of plastic, instead of exchanging the entire
unit. What hasn't been examined is our motivation for that determination. I made a judgment
call which was meant to give techieman33 the best experience possible, given what I knew the underlying facts to be.
Since the plastic end-cap is in no way related to the functionality of a
DMX splitter, a crack should not prevent him from using the device while we resolve the issue. Sending it here to be fixed (or replaced
if we can't solve the problem on the bench) would entail probably a week or more of back and forth transportation, during which time the splitter is not in
hand to use. Sending him the part means he can
fix it (with a Phillips screw
driver and about 4 minutes of time).
Even if the policy were a little different regarding what is a replacement and what is a repair, returning the
unit and getting a new one from us might have still taken longer than the plan
ENTTEC is pursuing, since we have been periodically backordered on this product due to high demand for the
D-SPLIT lately.
ENTTEC remains committed to providing a quality product at a fair price, and to that end will attempt to do the right thing whenever a product doesn't live up to expectations. Defining how best to achieve that is sometimes a subjective task, but nobody is more in the customer's corner than I am.
Respectfully,
Jeremy Kumin
US Sales Manager
Enttec Americas, LLC
