Service time Wetzlar

[BradS]

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I wonder why they can't or won't hire and train some more repair technicians. There seems to be an adequate business case for doing so.

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[BradS]

24 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Well it is a great (sic.) business model - tell the customer the lead time is 7 months and then do the repairs in "just" 5 and the customer will be super happy because the job was finished way ahead of the deadline 😄

Imagine how happy the customers would be if Leica quoted 7 weeks and returned the camera in 5 weeks.

[TomB_tx]

German companies shut down for a month in late Summer (Aug I think), so a time estimate would likely include that pause, and the backlog that would grow while shut down.

[TomB_tx]

Just now, Al Brown said:

The fact of the matter is, only some companies in Germany - same applies for the entire Europe - do shut down for collective vacation (Betriebsferien), others stay well open during the summer but work at lower capacity due to employees reduction. The practice of collectively taking July or August off dates from the Industrial Revolution, when it made sense to send off all assembly-line workers simultaneously.  Leica DOES NOT shut down for Betriebsferien in summer.

Thanks for the clarification - I was talking with a friend in Germany this morning who was planning for their month off in August, and implied this was very common there.

[69xchange]

“ Please note that we will be shipping your camera to Germany for service. They are currently experiencing very long turnaround times, and are estimating a minimum of 6 to 7 months from estimate approval. ”

 

Note that the time ONLY starts ticking once the estimated approval has been confirmed @ Leica Germany. So far, 2 weeks have gone by and my camera is still sitting in NJ since their email of confirmation of receipt was sent to me  .  
 

You know when people say “time fly’s or passes by in a blink of an eye”? Well, if you want to slow time down, just send an analog camera to Leica for service and it will feel like time is passing by very slowly for the next 6-7 months.

Edited July 12, 2023 by 69xchange

[gotium]

58 minutes ago, 69xchange said:

“ Please note that we will be shipping your camera to Germany for service. They are currently experiencing very long turnaround times, and are estimating a minimum of 6 to 7 months from estimate approval. ”

 

Note that the time ONLY starts ticking once the estimated approval has been confirmed @ Leica Germany. So far, 2 weeks have gone by and my camera is still sitting in NJ since their email of confirmation of receipt was sent to me  .  
 

You know when people say “time fly’s or passes by in a blink of an eye”? Well, if you want to slow time down, just send an analog camera to Leica for service and it will feel like time is passing by very slowly for the next 6-7 months.

This is normal. Last time I sent a film camera to Leica NJ for warrantry repair was a few years ago and it took seven months. When I got it back it was in need of a different repair. They declined my request to extend the warranty for the seven months I lost while they had it. 

Edited July 12, 2023 by gotium

[69xchange]

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48 minutes ago, gotium said:

This is normal. Last time I sent a film camera to Leica NJ for warrantry repair was a few years ago and it took seven months. When I got it back it was in need of a different repair. They declined my request to extend the warranty for the seven months I lost while they had it. 

Oh my, that’s a bummer. So I guess you had to pay out of your own pocket for the second repair (different issue) then? Was it possible that they may have caused the second issue while it was being repaired for the first issue under warranty?

[gotium]

9 minutes ago, 69xchange said:

Oh my, that’s a bummer. So I guess you had to pay out of your own pocket for the second repair (different issue) then? Was it possible that they may have caused the second issue while it was being repaired for the first issue under warranty?

Yes they caused it, no I didn't have to pay. But I did lose seven months' worth of warranty coverage. And camera use. 

[69xchange]

2 hours ago, gotium said:

Yes they caused it, no I didn't have to pay. But I did lose seven months' worth of warranty coverage. And camera use. 

May I ask what was the problem that they caused? 

[Helge]

Am 10.7.2023 um 18:02 schrieb Huss:

7 months wait time?  "Lack of staff" is not an excuse.  What that tells you is Leica does not see hiring/training staff for their service departments as a priority, and reflects on their disdain to their customers.

It is telling that Nikon, Canon, Sony etc do not have an issue with "lack of staff" in their service departments.  And they too have to train techs.

Lets compare:

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/service-and-support/factory-maintenance.page

Nikon's service turn around time is five days!  

You cannot just hire anybody from the street and let him/her repair complex unique products.

There is a huge lack of well trained and experienced people in all tech areas in Germany. This issue is hurting all companies and all businesses there. There is even a lack of all kind of employees.

The problem we see here with Leica is absolutely common across the country.

It is caused by a variety of reasons, demographic topics, pandemic aftermath, bigger changes in the industry causing a strongly increasing demand etc. and also finally due to a late reaction of industry and businesses. It will take time to overcome this.

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Helge

[BradS]

8 hours ago, Helge said:

You cannot just hire anybody from the street and let him/her repair complex unique products.

There is a huge lack of well trained and experienced people in all tech areas in Germany. This issue is hurting all companies and all businesses there. There is even a lack of all kind of employees.

The problem we see here with Leica is absolutely common across the country.

It is caused by a variety of reasons, demographic topics, pandemic aftermath, bigger changes in the industry causing a strongly increasing demand etc. and also finally due to a late reaction of industry and businesses. It will take time to overcome this.

 

 

It seems that German law may also require a camera repair technician to have some number of years (four?) of formal education - something like a college degree. If so, then I can see why it might be difficult for Leica to recruit and retain good technicians (in Germany).

Can anybody elaborate on this?

[Helge]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb BradS:

 

It seems that German law may also require a camera repair technician to have some number of years (four?) of formal education - something like a college degree. If so, then I can see why it might be difficult for Leica to recruit and retain good technicians (in Germany).

Can anybody elaborate on this?

Not the law, but Leica will most probably require at least some proven expertise and some pretty extensive experience.

Whether they require a formal education (which would be between 2-3 years) is unknown, not mandatory and not required by law 😉

Edited July 15, 2023 by Helge

[TomB_tx]

I remember Norman Goldberg (I think) writing about how hard it was to find apprentices for his (camera repair) business with the right attitude. He would give an applicant a test board with a collection of different types and sizes of screws tightly inserted, and they were to remove them all and reinstall. Nearly all would mess up some screw heads, but what he looked for was how much that bothered them. He said you could teach the skills, but not the attitude.

[thighslapper]

I suppose the only thing you can say is commendable is that Leica insist on a particular standard when it come to repairs and do it themselves.

The usual response of industry in a situation like this is to subcontract the work out to some cheap 3rd world operative with some basic training. That minimises the initial PR disaster but often stores up more trouble for the future ......

Might I suggest you try Camera Obscura here in the UK.......  if you want to drop your camera into a different black hole ..... 

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by thighslapper

[BradS]

1 hour ago, TomB_tx said:

I remember Norman Goldberg (I think) .... said you could teach the skills, but not the attitude.

Don's father? He was a technician, no?  If so, I can understand why he would believe this (he understands mechanical things but not people) but it is not really true.

We human beings are really good at optimization. All it really takes is for the desired behavior and expected outcome to be communicated, demonstrated and rewarded.

[Huss]

12 hours ago, Helge said:

You cannot just hire anybody from the street and let him/her repair complex unique products.

There is a huge lack of well trained and experienced people in all tech areas in Germany. This issue is hurting all companies and all businesses there. There is even a lack of all kind of employees.

The problem we see here with Leica is absolutely common across the country.

It is caused by a variety of reasons, demographic topics, pandemic aftermath, bigger changes in the industry causing a strongly increasing demand etc. and also finally due to a late reaction of industry and businesses. It will take time to overcome this.

 

Your excuse falls apart because Nikon, Canon, Sony etc do not have the same problem.   Unique to Leica.

And by the way, this isn't new.  Leica has been this bad since I bought my M9 (M-E) new which took them months to repair.  That was way before the current economic situation.

Leica doesn't care.  If they did, they would hire and train people. In the US as well as other countries.  Why is it that all the other mfgs are able to, but for Leica it somehow is a mystery?  because they don't care because they have convinced some in their base that it is acceptable.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Huss

[Helge]

vor 11 Minuten schrieb Huss:

Your excuse falls apart because Nikon, Canon, Sony etc do not have the same problem.   Unique to Leica.

You have probably no idea of the German job market, I suppose.

This is reality, no excuse. Other companies for example probably do not repair such old cameras (what Leica is doing right now and which blocks a significant part). There is presently a run for repair of all older M models, since analogue is on a roll. So at least 3 words of your post are true „Unique to Leica“ as the cameras are😉

Others probably just exchange their components, that doesn’t require major experience nor expertise 😀

Edited July 15, 2023 by Helge

[Huss]

3 minutes ago, Helge said:

You have probably no idea of the German job market, I suppose.

This is reality, no excuse. Other companies for example probably do not repair such old cameras (what Leica is doing right now and which blocks a significant part). So at least 3 words of your post are true „Unique to Leica“ as the cameras are😉

Others probably just exchange their components, that doesn’t require major experience nor expertise 😀

Then tell me why, in Germany, Nikon/Canon/Sony etc do not have this issue?  Trying to claim they just swap out components is grasping at straws.  Leica does the same too.

And tell me why in the USA Leica is also as bad?  They get away with this because people like you make excuses for them.  As long as there are enough who accept this awful customer service, there is no reason for them to change.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Huss

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[Helge]

As I mentioned (don’t you read my posts) Leica cameras are repaired in a lot of cases only in Germany and Leica undergoes presently a run of all kind of repair requests for cameras back to M3. Maybe Nikon/Canon/Sony have similar issues with their mechanical cameras with RF (oops) or even their analogue cameras (if they still repair them) 😀

Leica Germany has even re-activated former, retired employees.

This increase in requests combined with the virtually impossible increase of people with the necessary experience and expertise creates the problem.

The problem is absolutely common across the country.

Maybe you should watch sometimes another TV station that covers also international news…

Edited July 15, 2023 by Helge

[Bobonli]

I hope to never need to send my camera back to the nest for repair. Something, whether we like them or not, take time; granted half a year is very long. FWIW I reached out to Nikon to service my 1983 FM and they told me they stopped servicing film cameras years ago. On the one hand, it's amazing Leica still works on the old hardware; on the other hand, I'd be mighty angry if I bought an M11 and had to wait that long for a repair. Perhaps I don't understand the queue, but I'd like to hope that the new cameras get pushed to the front of the line for service.