Is more warranty on equipment better for end users?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

This is a topic that can go in so many different directions and discussions and is dependent on who the audiences are... I do not see any discussions about this topic in this forum, so I though it will be good idea to initiate a thread.

 

Here is the dilemma:

 

1. One side claims that more than one year warranty costs too much, therefore prefers lowest cost possible for a given hardware. One justification is based on an assumption that if such equipment lasts at least one year, it should last longer and why pay more for something that you can get them cheaper. Another states that the savings available will more than qualify a purchase of newer hardware every year or every other year. Yet another assumption states that lets reduce present exposure of costs at their minimal and take advantage of the saving in the future to change hardware to the latest technologies available at that time... and the list just goes on and on...

 

2. The other side of the spectrum differs on thinking process regarding warranty. One of their assumption is that lets invest now and reduce overall costs in the future. It will entail higher costs at the beginning, but in the long run they are way ahead of the game. Another opinion involves with commitments with a specific technologies that work well to their specific requirements, therefore it makes sense to stay with such hardware for a long haul. Yet another one states that it will be easier to budget for a hardware for period of three or five years, thus makes the numbers look great on the papers.

 

Both sides have legitimate concerns and reasoning of course. Both sides can justify their respective positions pertinent to their own assumptions or needs. One side justifies lower cost for less warranty and the other considers higher costs for products and longer term warrany.

 

There is no “ultimateâ€

[kensplace 0]

I prefer a longer warrenty.

 

I would buy a seagate drive with a five year warranty over a rival exact same specification drive that has a 3 year warranty.

 

Same with cards, cameras, etc - a long warranty not only lets you have peace of mind, it to me proves the manu has some faith in what they are selling.

 

They are unlikely to provide a multi year warranty on a peice of junk, and if it does turn out to be unreliable junk, at least you have years to send it back!

 

Most equipment should last years these days, so there is no reason manufacturers should not stand behind their equipment.

[vin2install 0]

You are right. Even though our company only cover 3 years we will usually carry parts up to 5 years. Warranty is a particularly tricky topic though. Most of the times its the customers fault though. We will usually cover even though they say it wasn't their fault but clearly it was . Sometimes they will get their polarity all mixed up on a 12vdc camera. Or they wouldn't ground or surge protect their cameras and wonder why right after a lightning storm their cameras would burn up. But people like the longer warranty even though it might cost a lil bit extra. Thats why sometimes if we have the parts we will cover past the 3 years we state because we have extra parts that are lying around.

[kensplace 0]

Touch wood I have never had to send anything back under warranty apart from a liteon dvr recorder that went back in the first few days.

 

Everything else that has had a warranty has lasted fine, so far..

 

Apart from a IBM laptop that the screen started to fail - the day after the warranty ran out!!!

[vin2install 0]

Apart from a IBM laptop that the screen started to fail - the day after the warranty ran out!!!

 

Those people who make warranty policy are real good. Almost like Vegas.

[C7 in CA 0]

I prefer lower initial cost. Many of my sales are price influenced and few people ever inquire about warranty, but everyone inquires about price. I know a longer warranty can be used as a sales tool, but I'm a systems integrator not a salesman.

 

Maybe if I had an office person to deal with tracking that sort of stuff I would be more interested in longer warranties. As it is now we are technicians and we just want to order new parts. Not deal with RMA's and all the headaches.

 

Is there any research on the true value of longer warranties? For instance, if I have a 300 dollar camera with a 1 year warranty how much is that same camera with a 3 year warranty?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Great answers...

 

My take always has been more warranty years from known manufacturer, it is better. Warranty aside, what also is very important is how such manufacturer tackles warranty repairs - do they force customers to pay for shipping or absorb such costs as well...

 

All the majors warranty basically is the same except how they handle it... As an example, Bosch covers (3) years warranty and pays shipping costs both ways by shipping advanced replacement overnight - thus far the best warranty procedure in the market. In case of Mitsubishi, they offer (5) years warranty and suppose to cover shipping costs both way, but it is a hit and miss.. Some claim that their warranty does cover shipping costs, but in an actual practice, they back peddle. All the rest give you RMA and wait until you send the defective equipment back and then they repair or replace such equipment, unless such failure occurs during first 30 days... and even then, it is a serious problem. Notion that such companies stand behind their products is a great marketing ploy, but not everyone explain how they do it until you fall in their trap...

 

I see a trend recently that produces even better customer service than what manufacturer offers (besides Bosch at least). Some integrators started to offer the warranties directly bypassing manufacturer warranties, thus improving the rotation and the repairs necessary for warranty equipment. This is not an easy task by any means, as it requires indepth knowledge of such hardware, resources to substantiate such repairs and necessary parts. This also is possible if such manufacturers are willing to discount their systems to substantiate such a venture (most do not).

 

Considering the facts that most DVRs have the basic computer parts - hard drives, power supplies, etc., it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how to repair most DVRs in the market. Besides proprietary capture cards, software, some special motherboards, most of the other components are common computer parts.

 

Here are items that I you should steer away at any cost...

 

1.Any proprietary software that requires software key each time you have to change the motherboard. Some of the manufactures believe that each time you change the motherboard that is out of warranty should entitle them a new software key, which will cost a lot. I guess they believe that they can pull Microsoft scheme.

 

2.Proprietary capture card that is manufactured only by one company. Most majors have their own capture cards, but some actually use prepackaged version of existing common capture cards with different firmware.

 

3.Run away from special cases that take only one type of motherboard not available in the market. Such cases have motherboard outputs that are available through machined metal cage.

 

4.Special motherboards that have unique output connectors that are only available from such manufacturers. This way they do limit where you can buy replacements. Such motherboards even come with special monitor connectors limiting someone's upgrade possibilities.

 

5.Not much anyone can do with embedded systems. Unless they are cheap enough to trash upon failure and replace with new.

 

6.Newer manufacturers with no recognizable brand names. These are the companies that give our industry the black eye – they come in and sell the products dirt cheap, make some money and leave the industry.

 

7.Watch the accuracy of the specs – not everything they state in spec sheets are accurate. Ordinary user will not know the difference, however it is our job to educate the end users. This is a very difficult task, as end user do not have time or willingness in most cases to understand facts.

 

8.Ask questions and participate in forums to observe what others say or think of a product before purchase. Price only should not be the determining factor on such decision. What you find in Costco at a cheap price should not constitute a purchase, just because you are buying it from Costco.

 

9.Research everything and if necessary, talk to the manufacturer. Compare their biased statements with what other state in the Internet. Find users of the same products and ask direct questions and you can ask users names from manufacturers for a point of reference.

 

10.Experience does count – it is better to spend more money to have a local support from a local dealer or integrator rather than take the manufacturers words. This way you can visit or talk to such dealer or integrator who hopefully can provide this essential service.

 

In the nutshell, more warranty is better only from reputable companies. What is even better option is to find a company that prolongs such warranties to preserve your investment in such hardware. The best ideas are always the simple ones – make sure that your system is not a closed loop solution, rather it is an open ended, so that you can upgrade your existing setup with less money in the future.

[leonligang 0]

This article could be used in reading comprehension of GRE, HOHO.

 

 

In my experience, customers like governments and big enterprises like warranty of more than three years. most of individual customers don't need more warranty, they just need low price to use.

 

Governments and big enterprises need professional solutions and services, and the solution and services must meet their financial formula and operating habit.

 

Individual customers focus on price, function, and quality. Few people concerns about the period of warranty before the product is in trouble, especially for electronic products.

[rory 0]

warranty plays no role at all in my decision on any product for anything.

[WRS_Mark 0]

Of course buyers love a long warranty. For CCTV equipment I find a one year warranty is fine. Assuming that you are using quality, name brand equipment if the DVR fires up and is operating correctly it usually will continue to operate for years if it is kept free of dust, coffee doesn't get spilled on it, no one knocks it over, my English Mastiff doesn't cover it in drool or eat it, etc. Same goes with cameras. For outdoor cameras, as long as they have good quality O-ring seals and sealant around the wiring harness making it tough for water to enter it, the camera should be fine (I demonstrated how weatherproof a bullet camera was to a customer by hitting it for a few minutes with 2600psi of water from a pressure washer from all angles). Indoor cameras without some type of sealant should not be placed in humid or dusty conditions. Again, if the camera works and has a clear picture it's probably going to work for a very long time. Even here in the frozen Great White North the only time I had one of my cameras fail in the last year was out at an acreage. The camera had no power to it for a week while the property owner was away during a cold snap (-40c at night) and when he came back he hooked up the power to it while it was in the -30c range. The camera now works until the temperature gets back down to -38 to -40c and then blacks out. Not exactly a warranty claim.

[suky 0]

Actually, the longer the warranty, the more you pay. Just pay more for repair fee and relatively better quality...

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Actually, the longer the warranty, the more you pay. Just pay more for repair fee and relatively better quality...

 

What? One side of the sentence conflicts with the other sentence... Are you suggesting it is better to spend more on repair fee rather than product with three years warranty? Does that make any sense to you? What will possibly the repair fee be compared to marginal cost difference in many cases between full three years warranty vs. one year warranty based products?...

[rory 0]

What? One side of the sentence conflicts with the other sentence... Are you suggesting it is better to spend more on repair fee rather than product with three years warranty? Does that make any sense to you? What will possibly the repair fee be compared to marginal cost difference in many cases between full three years warranty vs. one year warranty based products?...

 

do what we do, when it dies just throw it away and buy a new one

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

I prefer lower initial cost. Many of my sales are price influenced and few people ever inquire about warranty, but everyone inquires about price. I know a longer warranty can be used as a sales tool, but I'm a systems integrator not a salesman.

 

Maybe if I had an office person to deal with tracking that sort of stuff I would be more interested in longer warranties. As it is now we are technicians and we just want to order new parts. Not deal with RMA's and all the headaches.

 

Is there any research on the true value of longer warranties? For instance, if I have a 300 dollar camera with a 1 year warranty how much is that same camera with a 3 year warranty?

 

Very interesting angle from integrator's point of view... and I tend to agree if I were only an integrator...

 

You do not need to have an office person at full time basis to track warranty... that is the manufacturer's job in most cases. If the product fails, are you suggesting that you do not know if it is covered under warranty and replace it without checking where you bought it or who the manufacturer is? Man, your cost of doing business should be very high in this case, as you replace defective part with a newer part as a cost and with no recourse in having the defective part replaced...

 

My personal experience in this area shows very clearly that the same identical product with three years warranty could cost no more than 15 or may be 20% more.. Now, if you have the camera cost lets say $300, will it worth to spend lets say $60 more for additional two years? It all depends what your customers want rather what we all think anyway. If you customer is strictly price driven, then you have no choice... However, in most cases the warranty does play a roll in actual selling of hardware - giving people the good feel for the investment they make now and no worries for such period..

 

Lets look at it from a different angle.. If the same product is still $300 and it works fine for lets say for more than a year and then fails, what are you offering the same customer as a solution? Is it another $300 of the same part or repair it for lets say at least $100 plus cost of the service call, travel expenses, etc... The basic economics shows otherwise..

 

Most integrators that I worked and still do work today offer the following program... three years warranty on hardware and one year warranty on the labor.. thereafter, if the product fails, then the hardware cost is already realized, but customer pays more for labor (which of course could be negotiated ahead of time).. or in some cases, integrators offer full three years warranty on both the part and the labor...

[rory 0]

 

Most integrators that I worked and still do work today offer the following program... three years warranty on hardware and one year warranty on the labor.. thereafter, if the product fails, then the hardware cost is already realized, but customer pays more for labor (which of course could be negotiated ahead of time).. or in some cases, integrators offer full three years warranty on both the part and the labor...

 

1 year warranty on labour? How do they make a living?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

warranty plays no role at all in my decision on any product for anything.

 

Ok Rory, please explain then how you justify your time and the support that you provide after your installation is complete... Do you charge per call basis during a warranty or non-warranty period, is it the quality of the products that gives you the comfort that they do not or will not fail or something else? Just curious why warranty does not play any role in any of your decisions... What about your customers? Do they or not care of such objection or they prefer to pay as per call basis if and when (it is always when) such product fails...

 

I always respect your opinions and will be very interesting what your take is on this...

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

1 year warranty on labour? How do they make a living?

 

Hey Rory, how are you doing bud?

 

Good question and it mostly based on the quality of the product.. GIGO effect is always in place... you use crap hardware, do expect it to fail fairly soon and expect it to cost you more in the long run, unless if your customer is willing to pay for it..

 

In every case that I am involved with our end users, we offer full three years warranty on both the hardware and the labor across the board without any questions. That makes it difficult for you to carry too many brands and forces you to stick with selected few. Labor charges will not be low nor I will encourage anyone to do so.. Average cost of the labor from our matrix is around $75 per hour for such a task (and higher in some cases).. worked for us for over twenty years in this company and for me over thirty years...

 

Of course, this above assessment is based on the fact that such product could fail at least once within such three years time line.. so cost of the labor is covered.. however, there have been cases that we had a bad batch of the same product, which turned into a nightmare... so I understand the dilemma very well... Then again, you can not expect to be profitable all the time for every job, so at the end, everything somehow balances out... at least from my perspective anyway...

[rory 0]

 

Ok Rory, please explain then how you justify your time and the support that you provide after your installation is complete... Do you charge per call basis during a warranty or non-warranty period, is it the quality of the products that gives you the comfort that they do not or will not fail or something else? Just curious why warranty does not play any role in any of your decisions... What about your customers? Do they or not care of such objection or they prefer to pay as per call basis if and when (it is always when) such product fails...

 

I always respect your opinions and will be very interesting what your take is on this...

 

i dont warranty anything, its ridiculous to do that here unless you have tens of thousands dollars worth of stock and can afford months between sending items back and can get clients to actually pay for the warranty - then again that would be called a store and that I am not. A $100 item costs approx $300 landed here, now if that goes bad and you have to send it back, add another $300 for shipping and customs, you see, nobody is going to buy a $100 item for $1000. I am not a store, a CCTV store does not and will not survive here. Even the big alarm companies, they will charge the client to send it back, its not products that sell everyday like an alarm panel, to keep the price down they have to loose the warranty. People here are more interested in initial price. Obviously if the product arrives bad thats a different situation.

 

So yes it has to be a product that I am comfortable with enough that it will not likely fail right away. As to later down the road, everything can go bad, especially electronics, from lightning to brownouts, nobody warranties for that here. In fact I dont know anyone here that really warranties any electronics besides the initial purchase date, like the stores will normally give you a 30 day warranty which is reasonable time to install it. Heck, i got a limited 9 month warranty on my $40,000 jeep cherokee, a very limited 9 month warranty.

 

Just for another example, a local PC store sells hard drives, if they are bad, he just throws them away, it is not worth sending them back to the manufacturer/distr. customs and shipping just costs too much.

 

As to labour, I do the job right the first time. Otherwise there is always a charge for labour.

 

Again, prices are much higher here.

 

Remember my initial message was regarding whether I care for a warranty or not, which I dont as it means nothing to me since I will just throw the product in the garbage if it goes bad.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Guest

[rory 0]

1 year warranty on labour? How do they make a living?

 

Hey Rory, how are you doing bud?

 

Good question and it mostly based on the quality of the product.. GIGO effect is always in place... you use crap hardware, do expect it to fail fairly soon and expect it to cost you more in the long run, unless if your customer is willing to pay for it..

 

In every case that I am involved with our end users, we offer full three years warranty on both the hardware and the labor across the board without any questions. That makes it difficult for you to carry too many brands and forces you to stick with selected few. Labor charges will not be low nor I will encourage anyone to do so.. Average cost of the labor from our matrix is around $75 per hour for such a task (and higher in some cases).. worked for us for over twenty years in this company and for me over thirty years...

 

Of course, this above assessment is based on the fact that such product could fail at least once within such three years time line.. so cost of the labor is covered.. however, there have been cases that we had a bad batch of the same product, which turned into a nightmare... so I understand the dilemma very well... Then again, you can not expect to be profitable all the time for every job, so at the end, everything somehow balances out... at least from my perspective anyway...

 

hey, ive had better days. i ended up in the clinic from a bad wasp sting on my right hand, allergic reaction caused my right hand, of all hands, to blow right up, its still huge and painful but hopefully will get better with time. I dont know which hurts more, the sting or the clinic fees.

 

I just dont see how an installer/system integrator can warranty labour, where fuel charges these days are outrageous, they would have to sell a $100 item for well .. $1000 to cover any possible trips to the client. If they dont then it would be near possible to stay in business. Anyway im a tech, my time is money. I rarely even mark up the product if and when I sell a client a product, my goal is to make the labour, the money troubleshooting installs that others could not fix/install properly. I guess im a little different from your average system integrator

Edited September 17, 2009 by Guest

[suky 0]

Sorry to make you confused, what I mean is that it offers three years free warranty, actually the customers have paid for that for the wellknown brand cameras always charge higher.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Rory, sorry bud, I forgot about Bahamas... man, I had a customer there that was buying some domes and some cameras and his landed price was just unbelievable... taxes in your neck of the woods are just too much... and we have nothing to complaint about what we are facing here...

 

Just trying to get a feel how people react on warranty issues, which in many cases gets overlooked... Yes, we provide full blown three years warranty on everything we sell including the labor if we are doing the job... I guess you can say that we are more tunned to serve our customer for a long haul rather than making few dollars today...

 

From my experience, take care the customer best you know how, carry the entire warranty as intended and make sure that you get proper channels in place with manufacturers to support their own products. Even though the labor charged today in most cases is a possible break even cost within such warranty, it helps to retain and keep your customers for a long term basis.. and establish long term business relationships.