Hisense has made a fool of me for 6 months now.

<p>I'm writing to let you guys know of my nightmare session I've had with Hisense and their service department.<br /><br />When I bought this TV I was very skeptical of trying anything other than LG or Samsung when it came to TV's. And I was initially happy for them beating all the other TV manufacturers in SA to top spot concerning sales, but my experience now has left a bitter taste in my mouth and I'm not sure if I'll buy a Hisense product again, and that's sad as I do try and support local where I can.</p> <p><br />Here is my last communication with them on Thursday:</p> <p><br />To the relevant persons at Hisense South Africa:</p> <p> </p> <p>My name is Stephan Henning, with job card number ********** 2 for a Hisense LED TV.</p> <p><br />My journey with Hisense repair center started in the end of March 2016 when I phoned your service department to find out the procedure when one's TV stops working. I was told to fill in the relevant forms and to supply proof of payment. A few days later on 4th April 2016 I was given a job card number and that the service agent for your company in the area would pick up the TV shortly (usually 24 hours). Now this sounds all normal and to the book if not somewhat impressive, but hold on and let me re-tell you the shear incompetence and just silly procedures that are to follow from that solid start.</p> <p><br />Your service agent of Hisense in the area is T.T.S based in P.E with an office in George. I waited over a month for T.T.S to pick up the TV, they did arrive many times to apologize for not picking up the TV, then arrived without a ladder, then arrived as it was getting dark, also once when their transport was full so couldn’t take it with then either. I was patient and I was assuming a company with such a large footprint in SA would be on top of things in a professional manner.</p> <p><br />Finally after phoning your service department multiple times and begging them to please arrange the pick-up of the TV and not giving up, finally, I was given a date for the pickup. Obviously that date came and went and the TV was still in its broken position against the wall. But after picking up the phone again and speaking again with a telephonic representative of Hisense, a date was given, and they did arrive, not on the date of course but close enough in that same month.</p> <p><br />So with my TV on its way to your chosen service agent, many phone calls, polite banter with tele-service agents and weeks later in effort, I thought the hard work was done. This was in the end of May 2016.</p> <p><br />In June I asked Hisense to please give me an update on my TV, they then gave me T.T.S in George’s office number to phone and find our myself. T.T.S was using a share call number with P.E, and many times I would enquire about my TV and be sent from one person to the other and then the line would drop miraculously, now if this happened once or twice I would think cable theft, but I soon realized that even if you call then regularly the phone rang twice then you would be disconnected. I should have read the warning signs then already.</p> <p><br />After phoning Hisense again (you'll notice I do that a lot) I spoke to Lucy (excuse the spelling if you reading this) and I asked for another number as I can’t get through to T.T.S on their listed number, this was given and I did finally got in touch with Debbie from T.T.S P.E branch. She informed me that George branch has closed it's doors forever. She also told me that the screen is not repairable and I must take it up with Hisense. I then used another 4 or 5 calls to Hisense to find out what I must do now. Then one of your agents told me to go directly to Game and supply my job card number as this was how it was done, all I had to tell them was that Hisense has the TV and they could write out an voucher for the original buying price if I supp**** a job card number. The customer service counter of Game in George laughed at me for a little while and then did me the favor of calling their liaison in your Cape Town office to verify this new procedure. He informed then that this was not the way to go, so there I was driving back from Game George job card number in hand after useless advice from YOUR service department, this was in JUNE 2016.</p> <p><br />For the next couple of months I would phone regularly and inquire the progress of my repair. We have now established that T.T.S must return my TV to me so that I can then return it to Game myself, something I wished I had done originally, instead of following advice from Hisense.</p> <p><br />In this time I got to know many staff members in the service departments routines, and soon favored calling after 4:30pm as most of the staff has left and Shaheen (again excuse the spelling) was left manning the phones until 6pm, this had a positive and a negative side as the waiting time was longer as only the one fellow was steering the ship. But the big plus was that I didn’t have to re-tell the the story over and over again, and now I could use my time waiting for someone to become the next available consultant. Shaheen I'm sure will inform you that I have never raised my voice, never insulted anyone’s ability, all this to my amazement as most of the times I got the same answer from the service department consultants week in and week out and felt like the butt of the largest inter-office joke ever.</p> <p><br />I have seen this as a sort of How not to treat your customer exercise, and I thought I'd put an end to this little game we have been playing for 5 month by asking Shaheen to please escalate this matter for me as now I'm starting to worry about my telephone bill. The, please inform your manager exercise fell on deaf ears as well, after 2 weeks I phones again and spoke to Shaheen (as I knew when he would be on service) and asked what happened to my escalation, he then informed me that his manager / supervisor has not come back to him with an answer, this was a week ago, and now to date have not heard of anything from Hisense. Currently we standing on 1st of September, 6 months after I received my job card number from Hisense. And if I have to guess I'd say a total of 4 hours of my life has been spent on the phone, not counting driving the 38km to Game in George that one sunny day for my outing under the advice from your service department.</p> <p><br />Your new statistics for Hisense states that you are now the bestselling TV manufactures in SA, a accolade worth nothing if your backup and service means nothing to you. Customers' might be fooled with long term warranties and the fact that you have a Cape Town production plant and support the local economy. But let me just say that customers are not a bunch of buffoons and we all share our experiences and base our next purchase from it, have a look at the My Broadband Forum for an example and see the amount of research and advice there is when deciding on a new television set to adorn your living room. </p> <p><br />Currently all I want from Hisense is my broken TV back so I can return it to Game stores. Then I'll concentrate on running my businesses and maybe even spend some time with my kids, who knows what I will get time to get up to. </p> <p><br />The time is now 2pm on Wednesday 1st of September. I will give you 24 hours to reply to this email. If I see that you have again ignored my plea for help I unfortunately will have to tell the world about your lack of understanding of customer support and how to make sure you keep customers’ expectations in line with your sales promises. </p> <p><br />Yours in waiting</p> <p><br />Stephan Henning</p>