I am the sys admin for a small underfunded library in Michigan and purchased a brand new E4200 to service our patrons who chose to use their laptops in the building. It was purchased on Dec 3 2013 and it already doesn't work. There are no link lights on any of the Ethernet or the internet ports. I spent over an hour on chat with customer service to find out what I already knew and that was that it was broken. Then I was told that it was out of warranty and she wouldn't be able to help me if it turned out to need replacement. It's 2 months old; how can it be out of warranty? I then found her the receipt with the purchase date, so she continued to assist me, to a point. After we spent the hour of testing to find out it was broken, I was then told that I would need to call an 800 number to get an RMA. I obeyed and called the 800 number where I was disconnected 3 times before finally getting put on hold for another 15-20 minutes. At this time, I again gave the serial number and purchase date to a customer service rep who put me on hold to come back and tell me the router was out of warranty and they needed proof of purchase. I got a copy of the electronic receipt and pasted it into an email immediately after which she tells me that it will be at 24 hours before we know if I can have an RMA for my broken $170 router.
It was then I asked for a supervisor. The supervisor, Mark, just kept explaining to me that there are protocols for this type of thing.
So, here I sit, with no wireless for probably 2 weeks for my library patrons who rely on us for their internet access to pay bills, do homework and whatever other on-line tasks that they have.
It was at my insistence to the library administrator that we spend more than we really should have to buy Cisco because it was "reliable and had the best service around" and we wouldn't have to worry about it going out of service.
I am sorely disappointed not only in the amount of time it took me to fight my way around customer service but also in the product that I used to have so much faith in. I will certainly think twice and then three times before I buy another Cisco product for anyone that needs reliability and fast turnaround in the event of a breakdown.
Now I guess I can go and deal with the people that can't do their homework or pay their bills. Thanks Cisco