There's a move by Honeywell (Biosystems, Honeywell Analytics, BW Technologies lines) to only allow warranty replacements for sensors to go through registered distributors. This is an awful move, for a number of reasons. I call it a move, btw, because I only recently found out they were following this policy for Biosystems as well.

Relationships go bad. It's a fact of life. You know what doesn't help for your brand? Forcing customers to work with distributors who don't perform. My customers were all working with other distributors at some point in their life. They all bought monitors from a company, and because that company couldn't get the repairs done in a satisfactory manner, they bring those monitors to me. They've been hosed by the distributors, and they don't want to work with them. So what happens when that customer calls up and needs a replacement sensor for the one that failed before the warranty ended? They're told to speak with the distributor. The same distributor that screwed them in the first place.

Not handling your own warranty replacement sends one loud and clear message to the customer: "We don't care about you or the quality of our products." Is that really the message to send? That you don't want to deal with quality problems? How does a company expect to keep a pulse on the customer if they won't work with them?

I just recently found out they were doing this on the Biosytems line of products. Biosystems used to be great to work with, and I recommended them to a great number of customers. I love the ToxiPro, quite honestly, you can run it over with a bulldozer and it still works. However, garbage policies like this make it so I can't recommend any Honeywell brands to my customers now. Industrial Scientific is running superior customer service to Honeywell in my book, and I'm sure we ALL remember my last writing on Industrial Scientific's atrocious manner in dealing with technical support issues. Heck, I even followed up with a nice write up on how well BW Technologies handled customer service and had to follow THAT one up with a write up on how they took a nosedive when they closed down the Texas technical support branch. (FYI, Industrial Scientific has made some significant improvements to how they handle technical support. Fairly proud of them actually)

BTW, heads up to the Biosystems team, turn off the message that says you've reached BW Technologies when people call the Biosystems help line. It confuses customers, especially when those same customers call up with a BW Technologies question and get told that the people there don't know anything about BW Technologies products. When those customers come to me and ask me what the heck is going on, and I have to shrug and roll my eyes, it doesn't do your image any favors.

So this is probably it for me until this warranty replacement plan changes up. I don't like it when companies refuse to listen to the customer. I don't like customer service "by the numbers" where companies try and outsource their problems to other companies. I don't like it when companies don't address the customer directly and honestly. I especially don't like it when companies take something they do well, in this case swiftly fix problems and replace warranty sensors, and then ruin it by outsourcing it to distributors so they don't have to deal with it anymore. I won't be recommending Biosystems, BW Technologies, or Honeywell Analytics products to my customers until Honeywell changes their policy and decides to directly resolve sensor related issues with.

I'll continue recommending MSA, RAE Systems, RKI Instruments, and even Industrial Scientific again as the situation calls for, but I'm done recommending a company that won't directly make warranty replacements for their customers.