Xerox says, "To heck with customers..who needs them?"

Some years back, Xerox had outsourced all of their customer support to overseas call centers full of people who a)barely spoke English, and b)could only read from a canned script. The result was truly awful interactions if you needed to get a copier repaired or tried to order printer supplies.

But they seemed to figure that out, and for some time, if you called Xerox customer service, you got native English speakers who were delightfully helpful.

But the bean counters counter-attacked. At some point in the last couple of years, Xerox out-sourced all their copier and printer supply sales to CDW.

We have generally been happy with our Xerox printers and copiers, and have only bought Xerox supplies--pricey, but work well.

Recently, two very expensive color toner cartridges both failed within days of putting them in the printer. When we tried to return them to CDW, we were told that defective cartridges have to be returned within 30 days of purchase.

Which is ridiculous.

We always keeps spares on hand, so that if a toner cartridge runs out in the middle of an important customer print job, we have a spare. So we buy cartridges and they might sit on the shelf for two or three months before they are put into use.

So far, we have probably spent at least four hours arguing with CDW and Xerox without result. CDW's attitude is that policy is policy and it is Xerox's problem. Xerox "service" people just mindlessly repeat the policy.

So Xerox willfully sticks its customers with defective products and could care less.

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