Netgear Support After 90 days

There are lots of folks who have posted that here over the past few months. Its particularly frustrating when the problem is tied to a bug in a firmware upgrade (for instance the uninstall but in OS 6.2.2). In that case, support did provide free help (but many people in the beginning were asked to pay).

Check out the policy for the ReadyNAS units on the link below:

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detai ... arranty%3F

I'd just try to create an online ticket I I were you.

To be fair to Netgear, their written warranty policies have said 90 days for basic technical support for a long time. in 2014 they cut back to the published limits - before then they were providing more support than promised.

Well... I have raised a case and been denied. I wanted help re: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=81495. Even if I was to pay for the single incident, will they refund it if they cannot find the root cause?

Anyway, I know where I stand for future now I guess. It will affect my future recommendations.

It's only the support on here which makes the product viable now, which is very good.

If troubleshooting reveals a hardware issue with the chassis we would refund the per incident support. Customer Service can evaluate requests on a case by case basis.

Hi,

My question is more what if they cannot find root cause of the SW problem. The last 2 SW problems I have raised have not been resolved and I have swallowed this because I wasn't paying for it. My particular issue probably won't result in a fix or a known root cause but I wanted investigation nevertheless.

I would be livid to pay £60 and then be told that they would close the case as unresolved.

I can understand the cost saving exercise in removing software support but I do think it could cost Netgear some customers in the long run. I mean in my example, all of my support cases raised over the years have been genuine / complex issues (which is why several haven't been solved) and some have resulted in FW updates / fixes. One could say my input has improved software quality. I could understand if my query was a very basic kind of question / issue which can be found in documentation etc. And... as you probably know, I always query the forum before just running and opening a case.

Thanks...

steveoelliott wrote:
...I can understand the cost saving exercise in removing software support but I do think it could cost Netgear some customers in the long run.

I think it already has cost some customers. So I agree with this analysis.

Likely Netgear realized this when they started down this path. Ultimately "free" support is still paid for by the end users, it just ends up bundled into the product price instead of a support contract. As competition increases, customers start buying on price, so the bundled support becomes unsustainable.

It's a shame as some of the more technically savvy / professional users of this platform actually aid in development.

I have been using NAS devices since 2008 for over a dozen customers. Some units I have sourced directly but mostly customers purchase them and I configure / maintain them. In that time I have identified several software defects which led to firmware releases / fixes. There are also a number of issues which remain a mystery, very much like the case I raised yesterday. But the point is, as technically savvy / professional users, the likelihood is if we raise a case it will benefit everybody and it's far easier from a support perspective working with a technically minded customer than somebody who with all due respect has little knowledge of the underlying system. If we find the issues and work with support teams we save them time and pain on other support cases.

Perhaps a slightly controversial way of looking at things but I know of many organisations that offer premium / higher level support to those who are technically astute, sometimes at near zero cost.