B&O's Facebook 'reviews'

... all seems to be a way of venting for ignored and upset customers.  Is this what a premium brand should have happening to them?

B&O's Facebook Page

One star after one star after one star...

Someone should be watching and managing this, surely?

9 LEE:

... all seems to be a way of venting for ignored and upset customers.  Is this what a premium brand should have happening to them?

B&O's Facebook Page

One star after one star after one star...

Someone should be watching and managing this, surely?

I'm astonished someone from B&O has not picked up on these.  Wouldn't take very much to reply to them and offer assistance would it?

Ben

I don't know why companies offer these opportunities to post negative messages. They don't have to be verified but sit there online. It's not just B&O; look at any brand and you'll find it. 

I have to say, the support on 'Play' items is shameful.

I think I've got a new catchphrase for the B&O Play warranty department...

"if it's Play.. throw it away"

 

A true story, told to me by the engineer yesterday.  My local B&O service centre had a customer bring in a pair of H6's.  She loved them, and she sent them back to B&O as one 'side' stopped working.

B&O sent them back, basically saying 'throw them away, they're out of warranty and we can't/won't repair them'

The engineer unclipped the earpiece, found a broken wire / solder joint - got his solder gun out, re-joined the wire, and they worked perfectly again. He charged £15, and the customer is happy her £240 headphones are working again.

Yes... £240.  Not £19.99, not £49.99, not £99.99....

A premium pair of headphones - with zero support when they go wrong.  Shameful.

For a premium brand like B&O one would expect much better after-service. Especially when one considers the price of their products.

They should take a leaf out of Apple's book.

9 LEE:

Someone should be watching and managing this, surely?

Hard to manage as the scores can't be deleted. The reviews can (scores remain), but then if you start deleting reviews it's going to make people even more incensed.

But, frankly, it is incredible to see all that negative feedback on a company Facebook page.

This is quite discouraging as well as disturbing. It looks like B&O needs to hire a better PR person and take care of this growing problematic customer care service trend.

It's sad that most of the recent reviews are poor, as those are the most likely to be read by potential customers.   But the main takeaway is that they have 85%  4 or 5-star ratings (mostly 5).   How does this compare to other A/V manufacturers?   'Seems that's the metric to judge how well they're doing.

I'm glad this thread told me about this. I just posted a one-star review for the loss of Spotify on the BeoSound 5. We all should do the same to get their attention.

So sad. I have just spent some time reading through many of the 1 star reviews. B&O, seriously... what are you doing? It takes a lifetime to build up a reputation for quality products with outstanding customer service. You reached and maintained that target up to the 90s. What on earth have you been doing since? I am lost, confused and feel so terribly sad for you as a business. It is embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch this play out. I am hanging on by a very thin thread... don't lose another person who has been so passionate about your brand. Principle over profit - go back to your roots and make yourselves great again. Simon.

Not unrelated, how is their stock price at a 9-year high?  Certainly not takeover rumors.

Unfortunately, the principle of brand loyalty is changing for many people . The idea that Facebook will bring together anybody but those with a grudge is very foolish. It appears to be impossible to control the impression given by customers or anybody who wants to be negative about your company or products. What's strange is that after a bad experience with a hotel chain ,with cause to complain , we could only contact the company using social media. Perhaps this is so that they can be seen to address issues in public. The only way therefore is to be able to reply to your customers with a fix and be seen to fix their issues. If B&O aren't going to do this they shouldn't participate in Facebook.

It's a good platform if used correctly. Sometimes people are frustrated that they are not listened to

I always give the company an opportunity to rectify a situation but if they do not then sometimes it's your only avenue left

I can see why people give negative reviews. B&o aren't that fabulous. Sure they look and sound nice but they're not reliable and they don't stand by their warranty and customer promises.

If I have another faulty product as much as I love them I won't allow myself to be put in the same situation again. We are not talking peanuts.

I've never had an issue with Sony or Bose.

Therefore I think the Facebook reviews are helpful to see. It doesn't take a genius to read them and work through some people's opinions. You read them and think some people are a twit and some are genuine. You take what you want.

Out of curiosity, I reviewed most of the 1-star reviews. Two things stood out:

1) A lot of the negative reviews were about B&O Play in particular, and poor customer support for the B&O sub-brand. Even though it is an affordable sub-brand of the luxury Bang & Olufsen main-brand, BeoPlay products are by no means cheap, compared to comparable mainstream brands. So the lack of support, or bad experiences with BeoPlay support, reflect badly on the Bang & Olufsen brand.

I would separate Bang & Olufsen and B&O Play on facebook – just as they are separated on the web (both have their own websites). In addition, the core clientele of the sibling brands are different.

2) Most of the negative feedback on Bang & Olufsen products relate to their latest offerings that run on the new Android platform (TVs) and the never-ending beta stage of the Moment (again, developed on Android). Most of the negative feedback here is the software.

I hope B&O will phase out all Android-based products. That OS is a mess: for example updates that do not clear previous Android caches will lead to all kinds of problems that are impossible to debug, as they depend on the specific cache each device has. My company develops software for Android, and it is a nightmarish platform we HAVE to deal with. If an upgrade is not a clean install, there will be an infinite number of individual issues. I wish we could only support iOS and Unix/Linux based proprietary platforms, but in this defragmented Android-infested world it's a platform we cannot overlook, due to userbase.

Okay, that was a rant on Android.

The point for Bang & Olufsen: I hope WebOS for the BeoVision Eclipse will be a reboot for B&O TVs. As for other BeoVisions in the range, their proprietary software for, say, BeoVision 11, worked flawlessly.

So my advice for Bang & Olufsen (excluding BeoPlay) products would be to revive their legacy NL(ML) platform, refine it, and leave all the "smart stuff" to 3rd party solutions such as Apple TV or Chromecast.

In other words, customers could opt for the little exhangeable set-top boxes integrated with B&O's PUC. Here, the customer could choose the "smart" platform that best suits their needs, and change it whenever it changes, without having to resort to updates (that do not work) or buying a new 10k TV every second year.

A core Unix/Linux based platform would keep B&O in the clear from the mess they are now in. As users of also Sony TVs (etc) will confirm, Android will always be a recurring headache for otherwise electronically perfectly superb products.

Just my 2 cents. Or pennies.

Last but not least, for B&O: stop the outsourcing of software! Re-hire the Listening & Viewing panel (I have the feeling they are no longer a part of the B&O way of things). Do what you do best and leave the elusive, mercurial "smart" stuff for 3rd parties, from which customers can choose themselves. After all, that is why you perfected the PUC philosophy.

NB. As for support, something is horribly wrong if B&O Play, at their prices, cannot provide customer support that surpasses all peer brands in that or lower price range. They are China-outsourced products, so the focus should be on support when quality fails!

@KMA

Indeed the facebook sites for Bang & Olufsen and BeoPlay are two different sites.

 

As for your hope (which I personally would share) for a Bang Olufsen platform without the SmartTV part, I guess there is little hope.

The complete 'tv/picture experience' will come from LG, which means the WebOS platform - Struer will have little influence on that.

In the tv world there has been a shift from 'source-based' (as we saw it in e.g the BV11) to 'content-based' experiences. This means that a tv must have some sort of SmartTV function nowadays. 

As an example the good old tv channels are no longer regarded as channels from this or that distributor (BBC, ARD, DR-TV....), but as a place to find content, just like if you are looking for content on YouTube or Netflix or Amazon or the NAS on the local network. People want to (so the smart guys tell us) search across all platforms available for what the want to consume.

(And yes, I agree - relying on Android as a reliable platform was a mistake).

 

As for the 'Listening & Wieving panel' - these person were never 'hired persons'.

They simply were employes at B&O in Struer, who partly did this.

To some extend they still do - at least on the audio part.

 

MM

@Millemissen

Yeah, I hope B&O will get out of Android. However, it seems they have to go with the platform(s) of their panel suppliers these days: WebOS for LG's OLED, Android (?) for TP Vision. The old business model, where panels & OS were separate, was better.

IMO, they should have never abandoned the BV11 / 4k Avant 1st Gen Video Engine platform. It's been all downhill from that point: Horizon, BV14, Avant NG.

I may be naive, but give me a panel with good picture processing (as there was in BV11 with Samsung's panel), a working AV setup (we had it pre-Android), NL that works (we have it, but the Android-based terminals such as BS Moment do not work) and let us choose the "smart" add-ons. Apple TV / Chromecast work for me. There is NO reason to built a BV on Android.

As for BS Moment... B&O should just discontinue it. We can have all the same functionality on our tablets, with Essence / BS Shape's Core as the hardware that bridges the Moodwheel 'et all' to B&O's speakers. Build the Moodwheel in a B&O app. Yes, the wooden side of Moment is nice – but really, with any tablet (that would have the Moodwheel interface in an app) and the Essence 'wheely' tactile remote, you'd have the same overall experience.

I fear that B&O is in too deep in a new hardware & software mix & match matrix that nothing will work as it used to work.

When did it spin out of control? In my view of 20+ years of B&O: after BV11/4k Avant, and with BS Moment.

They should step back and re-think, separately, the infrastructure & UI (or user access points that make the daily user experience). Their infrastructure (NL/ML) works, the UI access points and "smart stuff" do not. Why? Make a multi-room setup with BeoSounds (including BeoPlay A6, A9 and M5) and BeoVisions that do NOT have any Android implementations... and Voilá.

- BeoSound Essence

- BeoSound Shape

- BeoVision 11 / Avant (non-Android)

- any BeoLabs

- BeoSound 35

- BeoSound 1 & 2

- BeoPlay A9 / A6 / M5

- any "legacy" BeoSound, such as BS9000 or BS32000.

...and you have a working setup.

Introduce any of these in the setup:

- Horizon, BV14, Avant NG

- BeoSound Moment

...and you ruin the Bang & Olufsen experience. And the common nominator is...? Yep, it's that obvious.

There's the perfect forest, ruined by only a few very bad trees.

Interesting feedback about Android, KMA. I have heard others "in the business" express similar sentiments. I also experience my own (and family's) Android phone devolve over time to laggy frustration. From a $500 phone, this is annoying. From a $8000+ tv, it in unacceptable. There's a trend identified as the "crapification" of tech. B&O was my harbor from this storm - perhaps webos is not the android nightmare.

Timely feedback, too, since a lightning strike may have pushed me into the market for a BV8 and BS5 replacement. After reading this, and other feedback on this site, I will scratch the Horizon and Moment off my list (sadly).

Stan

The biggest surprise to me is that this many people are surprised!

I think b&o treat the majority of the play range as cheap, quick turnover product where they can release lots of products in quick succession to generate lots of new sales and then discontinue them at the same alarming rate.

The reality is that while they may be less expensive than anything the "grown up" brand has to offer they are still expensive compared to most of their direct competitors in the market and as such should be properly supported both in the design (I.e. not releasing half funished, ill conceived products with disparate non-compatible features without a sense of a unified brand strategy) and also in after sales service.

Those that make their first tentative purchase are unlikely to be back if it booms like its inside a tea chest and it cant b altered or as, in Lee's case, you're thrown under a bus should it fail

 

Not being a Facebook user I was unaware of any of this. However, looking at the half page that Facebook will allow me to view without subscribing, I have to say that many of the one star reviews look well reasoned and justified. It's not something that B&O PR should be trying to manage.... it needs addressing by retailers and quality control at B&O itself.

Graham

Puncher:

The biggest surprise to me is that this many people are surprised!

I think b&o treat the majority of the play range as cheap, quick turnover product where they can release lots of products in quick succession to generate lots of new sales and then discontinue them at the same alarming rate.

The reality is that while they may be less expensive than anything the "grown up" brand has to offer they are still expensive compared to most of their direct competitors in the market and as such should be properly supported both in the design (I.e. not releasing half funished, ill conceived products with disparate non-compatible features without a sense of a unified brand strategy) and also in after sales service.

Those that make their first tentative purchase are unlikely to be back if it booms like its inside a tea chest and it cant b altered or as, in Lee's case, you're thrown under a bus should it fail

 

Well said Puncher! I find myself in complete agreement, especially with your description of the Play approach.

vikinger:

Not being a Facebook user I was unaware of any of this. However, looking at the half page that Facebook will allow me to view without subscribing, I have to say that many of the one star reviews look well reasoned and justified. It's not something that B&O PR should be trying to manage.... it needs addressing by retailers and quality control at B&O itself.

Graham

I would very much hope that it would be illegal to modify, edit or remove genuine user negative reviews,. By all means have the right of reply but either don't ask or else be prepared to live with what people genuinely think!