Beau West

Recently at my workplace, we bought several of the developers some Vizio noise-canceling headphones. They’re really pretty nice headsets, very solid construction with good sound. The biggest reason they bought them though was for the ANR (Active Noise Reduction). — Mine was broken.

Whenever I would activate the ANR, the right earphone would emit a continuous annoying tone instead of the white-noise it was supposed to create. I immediately ruled out the possibility that it was just something I was doing wrong or how I had it set up. We had several of them so I just tested a few of the others with no issue at all.

I called Vizio. After spending several hours on the phone and going through a few customer support people, trying all the little things they asked me to, they finally agreed to replace the headset. I had two options: give them a credit card number and they would send the headset right away, or have them email a pre-paid label and they would send a new headset as soon as they got mine. I don’t have a company card and wasn’t about to use my own, so I chose to wait.

About couple of weeks later, after no communication from Vizio I received a package with the headset in it. I took it to work the next day and plugged it in. — It still didn’t work!

Cassandra via Email: “I am sorry for your troubles however your product was tested for 2 days at our facility and we were unable to duplicate the issue that you are reporting. The only time the headphones beeped was when the volume was turned all the way up and we tried to turn it up higher. This beep is a notification to let you know that the volume level is already as high as it can go.”

I called Vizio again. The first customer service guy I got was extremely helpful. I wish I had written down his name so I could give him credit here. We’ll call him David. He looked at the notes and told me that they had sent the same headset back!

David confirmed that they had sent the exact same headphone back to me! He contacted the testing facility and talked to the person who had tested them. They had me try a few basic things again, but they weren’t willing to budge. I was imagining it!

David convinced them to at least give me some options. They told me to make a video showing the issue and send it to them. I made the video, but they couldn’t hear the issue because the sound wasn’t loud enough. — Thankfully David convinced them that if I had gone through all of this pain and trouble, I probably wasn’t lying about it.

They finally agreed to send me a new headset. This time they would send it out right away, and then I would send the old one back when I got the new one. Problem finally solved. — But it was a frustrating experience.

Why would you send back a product that you agreed you were replacing? Why should I have to provide a video just to prove that I wasn’t lying about it?

A few days later I got a call from a higher up at Vizio. We’ll call him Fred. He said my case had come across his desk and he wanted to make sure everything was taken care of. It turns out that he had found my video on Vimeo. Apparently when you search for Vizio Headset Issue, my video comes up right away.

I am thankful for David. He did a wonderful job making sure that I was taken care of and he refused to pass off my case until I had an acceptable resolution. I’m glad Fred noticed me, recognized my frustration and took the time to call me and communicate that to me.

Vizio is not a bad company, they have some really wonderful products. I’m very sure that most experiences with their customer service are much more pleasant than mine was.

I’m not frustrated anymore.