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Delighting You Always

That’s Canon’s global tag line for all their businesses. They use “My Image, My Canon” for their amateur photography business.

I think it is dangerous to have a tag line like “Delighting You Always”. It seems to make a claim that cannot be kept – and then the user’s disappointment is magnified by the contrast with the marketing.

For example,

I purchased my Canon EOS-30D camera from Amazon.com, an authorized Canon dealer, before I left the USA in 2006. About three months after I arrived in Bangkok the shutter failed.

It was still under warranty so I took it to Canon (Thailand) on Sathorn Road. But they denied warranty service as the warranty only applied in the USA. I had to pay for a new shutter.

I definitely was NOT delighted! It seemed most unreasonable that Canon, a worldwide company, should limit its warranties thus. They know that photographers travel. They sell the same camera worldwide. Why not offer a worldwide warranty? It’s just an accounting problem to make sure the money gets channeled correctly.

I think the same is true of all the major vendors. They present the image of a single company to the world, but when you dig a little deeper Canon (Thailand) says “oh no, that’s not OUR problem, it’s a Canon (USA) problem”.

As far as I am concerned I deal with Canon and could care less about the parentheses. I am sure many users encounter the same issue and are not delighted.

“Delighting you Always” indeed. Piffle!

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This entry was posted on September 3, 2009 at 9:48 am and is filed under Canon EOS-30D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Delighting You Always”

  1. Camera Prices in Thailand « Bkkphotographer's Blog Says:
    October 11, 2009 at 9:31 am | Reply

    […] that if I buy a camera in the US I won’t get warranty service in Thailand, it’s best to buy here even if it is 10% […]

  2. Michael Willems Says:
    October 16, 2009 at 12:44 am | Reply

    Canon is well known for not honouring warranties internationally. For a traveller like me that is a pain.

    Honouring profits more than customers eventually bites back (like in these blog posts!)

    • BKKPhotographer Says:
      October 16, 2009 at 9:43 am | Reply

      A Thai friend who works in Singapore bought an expensive Sony laptop here in Bangkok because she needed the Thai keyboard and software. Sony Singapore would have nothing to do with it when it had a problem.

      I suspect it is a common problem with all the manufacturers. Is Nikon any better?

      Do you get international service from Canon Professional Services (CPS)?

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