Kudos to the fine folks at Fujifilm!

 

A couple of years ago, I received a Fujifilm Finepix AX550 camera as a gift. It's a really nice little camera that takes beautiful pictures, but it was much less useful than it could have been because it was draining batteries so rapidly. I should have done something about the problem long ago -- but I didn't. Finally, last month, I decided to contact Fujifilm and see if anything could be done about the camera's short battery life.

I called the company's US headquarters in Edison, NJ and spoke with a helpful gentleman who informed me that I could send the camera in for repair. "How much will it cost?" I asked. "Nothing," he replied.

Surely, I thought, he meant that they would not charge to diagnose the problem, but would want to be paid for repairing it, since the camera was well out of warranty.

So I carefully packed up my camera and sent it off. Two days later, I received a form email acknowledging receipt of the camera and giving me a case number I could use to check on it. The wording of the email seemed to indicate that in due course, I would be receiving another communication informing me of the cost to repair the camera and giving me the option to authorize the repair -- or have the camera returned as is.

Instead, one month to the day after I sent it off, my camera was returned to me via FedEx fully repaired -- at no charge.

Many companies have forgotten the meaning of the term "Customer Service," but Fujifilm is not one of them.