Ok, so I mentioned in my post about the Parrot Bluetooth car kit I purchased along with the appropriate harness for my 2001 Chevy Tahoe a few weeks ago. Actually, I recieved the car kit as a gift, but purchased the harness myself. When I was first looking into the Parrot 3400 LS-GPS, I looked on the Parrot website as well as most of the bigger online stores that sell Parrot car kits. Installer.com was one of the sites that I checked what kit costs were as well as what kind of items I would need to install it in my Tahoe. I am not a professional car electronics installer. I am not even an amateur, but I am not afraid to get into things and I am a little handy. So, rather than taking the literature on the Installer.com website as the end-all be-all of what I needed, I called the phone number on their website. I got someone on the phone right away and explained what vehicle I had, that I had Onstar and the Bose stereo and what I wanted to install. No worries, the voice on the other end of the line told me that I needed the Parrot kit, and two harnesses to plug right into my factory stereo. This would allow me to use the Parrot bluetooth kit as a factory installed bluetooth speakerphone, playing audio through my speakers and muting the stereo when a call comes in or is made.
Anyway, the unfortunate part is that the items that I was told I needed were not the ones that my car required. Ok, not the end of the world. I gave a call back to the guys at installer.com (which is a stereo shop in Houston I believe) and got one of the installation guys on the phone this time. He asked me what vehicle I have and what parts I have. He told me that I had the wrong parts and that I needed one harness, not two. So, I would need to send them back and then they would send me the correct one when they received mine back. Of course, the kicker is that I would be on the hook for all of the costs associated with shipping things back and forth. Swizze. I paused and then told him that I thought that was kind of a silly policy. Apparently, installer.com’s position is that there are different systems installed in different vehicles and that one car might use one of 5 different harnesses. “Some people order 4 or 5 harnesses and then send back the ones they don’t need,” I was told. I told him that I understand that, and it made sense to me. But, the thing was, I called in and the guy I spoke to told me, with no uncertainty, that I needed the kit and two harnesses and never mentioned that these might not be the right harnesses for my Tahoe. He just told me that these were the ones I needed…he even offered to plug them in for me if I didn’t mind “open boxes” or packaging. I thought that was cool, btw. Anyway, after telling him that I thought this was a silly policy he asked if I would like to talk to the owner about it and I said sure.
Let me say that the tone of the conversation up until this point was super calm and everyone was cool as pie. Not that things ever really got far away from that, my level of frustration would rise dramatically very quickly at this point.
So, now I get the owner, who you can see a picture of on the installer.com website. We talk for a bit, and not to bore you with all of the details, the point he made to me was that at the bottom of just about every page (FYI, none of the product pages of the items I purchased), is a disclaimer that says something to the effect that there may be more than one harness for a particular vehicle. While this disclaimer did not appear at the bottom of any of the product pages that I purchased, I told him that I thought that was pretty silly to think that anyone would read some small print that is the last legible item at the bottom of a page. Not only that, if you want someone to accept certain terms or conditions or understand something that is critical to the use of their purchase, then making them positively accept those terms or aknowledge those terms is what you should do…not stick it/them at the bottom of a page that would take you about 20 page downs to get to the bottom of. Our conversation really went nowhere and surprisingly I did not lose it, and I told him thanks for listening and hung up the phone. The listening part was a bit of sarcasm…he didn’t listen to a thing I said…or so I thought.
Since I still did not know if the harnesses that I had were the wrong items for my Tahoe, I went down and pulled the radio from the dash. Indeed, I did have the wrong items and I would have to send them back. Since Installer.com does not accept any returns without a return authorization (RA or RMA number), I called in to get things going. When I called, I got the person I first spoke to when calling for what items I needed for my application. We spoke for a minute and he let me know that the boss told eveyone that when they are telling people what they need, that they have to tell them this is what “should” fit your vehicle. Pretty funny in the end I guess. 10 years ago I probably would have written my congressman about this whole deal, but at the end of the day, there is really very little to get that angry about.
It would have been nice however if they met me half way and picked up one or two of the shipping charges, but the guy told me that the boss was not going to do it. Whatever, I am not going to get angry and into a pissing contest over $20. So, about 5 days later, I had the correct harness for my 2001 Tahoe and I called back and made sure that I was putting everything together correctly. I spoke to the same guy I spoke to when I called them to make sure I was putting everything together correctly the first time and he told me how to plug things together. We even talked about the weather in Houston and here in SF.
So, everything went in as smooth as silk. Installer.com did not make the car kit or the harnesses, but at the end of the day, they did have the parts in stock and the expertise, ahem, to tell me what I needed for my application. I do however think that they have some work cut out for them as far as making right by their customers and making sure that people are satisfied when they make a mistake.
Would I recommend buying something from Installer.com? I would. Hopefully, anyone who buys from them will have read this and understand that there are a lot of variables involved when purchasing electronics to integrate into your factory systems. I don’t think that Installer.com is going to go out of their way to make sure that people understand this when they are talking to them on the phone or they are purchasing items from their website. So, if you do plan on ordering something from them, I would give them a call and ask them which items, if any, might be the right ones for your application. Good luck.
[tags]Installer.com, Reviews, Sucks[/tags]
