Subscriber Discussion

What Steps Should Hikvision Take To Achieve And Keep Customer Loyalty?

U
Undisclosed #1
Dec 23, 2015

What steps should Hikvision take to achieve and keep customer loyalty? What can they do to fill the PELCO niche? Axis has a very high price point in many market segments. How can Hikvision manage to gather up their customers? I am surprised that Axis and Schnider still have their market shares.

NOTICE: This comment was moved from an existing discussion: Hikvision Confuses 'Financial Market' With Chinese Government

JH
John Honovich
Dec 23, 2015
IPVM

Keep doing what they are doing - solid quality, excellent support, rockbottom price.

The Pelco reference is fascinating here because they were famous for top customer service / loyalty, before Schneider acquired them.

From what I have heard about the Pelco fall, the main driver was Schneider cost cutting. Not surprisingly, white glove customer service is really expensive, even back in those days when the average prices were dramatically higher than today's Hikvision.

That's what I am skeptical about with Hikvision. It's one thing to sell boxes for cheap. Take the Ubiquiti model. It works but the tradeoff is clear, you will get rockbottom prices but don't expect to speak or see a human being from Ubiquiti.

Eventually when a company gets concerned about making a profit, high touch customer support is a top target for getting cut, because it's so expensive and, because it is inherently local, it is not something that can be outsourced or done for cheap in China.

(1)
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Dec 23, 2015

I can vouch that their phone support is not that great. You can eventually get a tech on the phone in California, but it's a long wait and they are not the experts you would expect on their own product.

To be completely honest, one big factor in joining IPVM was to communicate with others in my field to get better quality answers much quicker. With all of the Hikvision that I have installed in the last two years, their technical support only managed to solve one issue (which was to RMA the product).

I will say that one thing they can do to keep me happy is to use standard-size mounting on their camera bases or mounts. Every time I mount a camera on an octagon or single-gang box, I have to drill out one of the holes in order to make it fit properly. It's really annoying and cuts into productive time.

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