Lets first start off by saying I am not new to drones, piloting, or dealing with companies. I understand policies, why they have them, and what customer service is about (ie, what a reasonable customer situation is, when a customer takes advantage, and when a customer is unreasonable).
For me, I own 7 DJI drones. No issues. I have been piloting for years. I know all about technical issues. I know about pilot error issues.
I end up getting a Parrot Anafi Extended from my in-laws as a Christmas present. It is my first non-DJI "professional" drone I have owned.
Now, being a present, I did not get a receipt with it. My in-laws are quite conservative, and asking them for a receipt is basically the same as asking to see their latest mammogram or last years taxes.
Having received a DJI drone as a present before, I know there is usually an activation or registration process involved that is required before flying the drone to make sure you are covered under warranty.
I also have done enough research to know that "out of the box" issues have been well-documented with the Anafi, so it was a concern before I even opened the box.
So, I contacted Parrot support after scouring their website (which is totally devoid of any sort of "registration" or "activation" language) and sent them a support email asking about my situation.
The response was that you *NEED* a receipt for any sort of warranty support. (note, in the past I contacted DJI and once I activated their drone online I was covered by their warranty and no receipt was needed for a situation of a "gift", so I know it is not a industry standard "requirement")
So, I then proceed to call their support line. In attempting to talk to the support lady, it was obvious she could not understand the English spoken language, as she isn't listening very well and making comments where she is trying to ascertain where in her "script" she needs to start, she then starts making excuses of not being able to hear me when I was obviously asking questions that were "off-script" for her to answer and that she was obviously in no position to answer. We got disconnected and for the next 15 minutes I tried calling back. I got them to answer 3 times, where I KNEW they answered, but held their hand over the phone and made it sound like they couldn't hear me. One of those calls was from a land-line, so a totally different type of connection and still the same thing (it sounded like they kept putting their hand over the mouthpiece with a somewhat prominent swooshing sound which muted them greatly but could still be barely heard and they acted like they couldn't hear me). I then tried calling back an additional 2 times and they would not answer (which means to me they were screening the calls). End result is that I have ZERO faith in Parrot as a company on the support side of things, from either email or phone.
Basically, I was at a crossroads, take a leap of faith that I received a perfectly operational drone without issues, or that I was rolling the dice and if it freaks out and is dysfunctional I am screwed.
I manned up, charged up the battery in the drone, charged up the controller, installed the app on my Galaxy S9+ and setup an account. To my surprise they did require an internet connection to "activate" the drone, which I did upon startup. It installed the latest firmwares (controller, AC and battery), and I proceeded to launch in in my front room. I can report that it went vertical to about 4ft and hovered there, rock-solid. I moved it forward, back, left, right and then rotated it left and right (man is that set to a very slow rotate rate to begin with) and it went up and down just fine as well, all without moving an inch in any other direction than I wanted it to. I landed it and then made sure the camera moved up and down properly (again, super-slow rate to begin with) as well as good video and a fairly level horizon.
I shut it off and proceeded to do a few more launches and landings. I did do a test I saw in a video review where you put your hand underneath it and it ended up taking off in a weird direction horizontally. I grabbed it out of the air and proceeded to shut it down (strong little beast I will say), so no crash or anything. I have to determine if that was the proper action for it to take with an obstacle from below or if it was just poor lighting in the house at night that caused it to do that. I also have no idea if range is proper as I will need to fly it outside to determine that.
I then charged up the two remaining batteries, updated them in the drone before putting everything away for the evening. I also noticed that both in-app purchases for features were only $0.99 each so I bought both of them to unlock all options for the app. In reading reviews it looks like those options were $18-19 or some such prior, so does that mean this was a "holiday sale" or that they are going to be dropping support for the Anafi in the near future???
So, hopefully I have a solid drone with no issues that require warranty service, since it is HIGHLY questionable if I will get any coverage at all. It is just sad that a company as large as Parrot is so hap-hazard with their customers. Especially for a product such as the Anafi, requiring a receipt for something that is so clearly in the "giftable" category is just crazy. I could see if you could only purchase through specific specialty retailers, but they sell them through both Amazon and Best Buy. You can't get more "big box" than those two. I also highly doubt there is a large volume of these in the "grey-market" where they need to know where it came from. I mean isn't that what a serial number and an online activation is for, to verify ownership???
I can only imagine they have a completely different support team for their commercial products that are built on the Anafi framework. For the prices they charge for those I cannot see them expecting their customers to go through the stupidity I did.
For me, I own 7 DJI drones. No issues. I have been piloting for years. I know all about technical issues. I know about pilot error issues.
I end up getting a Parrot Anafi Extended from my in-laws as a Christmas present. It is my first non-DJI "professional" drone I have owned.
Now, being a present, I did not get a receipt with it. My in-laws are quite conservative, and asking them for a receipt is basically the same as asking to see their latest mammogram or last years taxes.
Having received a DJI drone as a present before, I know there is usually an activation or registration process involved that is required before flying the drone to make sure you are covered under warranty.
I also have done enough research to know that "out of the box" issues have been well-documented with the Anafi, so it was a concern before I even opened the box.
So, I contacted Parrot support after scouring their website (which is totally devoid of any sort of "registration" or "activation" language) and sent them a support email asking about my situation.
The response was that you *NEED* a receipt for any sort of warranty support. (note, in the past I contacted DJI and once I activated their drone online I was covered by their warranty and no receipt was needed for a situation of a "gift", so I know it is not a industry standard "requirement")
So, I then proceed to call their support line. In attempting to talk to the support lady, it was obvious she could not understand the English spoken language, as she isn't listening very well and making comments where she is trying to ascertain where in her "script" she needs to start, she then starts making excuses of not being able to hear me when I was obviously asking questions that were "off-script" for her to answer and that she was obviously in no position to answer. We got disconnected and for the next 15 minutes I tried calling back. I got them to answer 3 times, where I KNEW they answered, but held their hand over the phone and made it sound like they couldn't hear me. One of those calls was from a land-line, so a totally different type of connection and still the same thing (it sounded like they kept putting their hand over the mouthpiece with a somewhat prominent swooshing sound which muted them greatly but could still be barely heard and they acted like they couldn't hear me). I then tried calling back an additional 2 times and they would not answer (which means to me they were screening the calls). End result is that I have ZERO faith in Parrot as a company on the support side of things, from either email or phone.
Basically, I was at a crossroads, take a leap of faith that I received a perfectly operational drone without issues, or that I was rolling the dice and if it freaks out and is dysfunctional I am screwed.
I manned up, charged up the battery in the drone, charged up the controller, installed the app on my Galaxy S9+ and setup an account. To my surprise they did require an internet connection to "activate" the drone, which I did upon startup. It installed the latest firmwares (controller, AC and battery), and I proceeded to launch in in my front room. I can report that it went vertical to about 4ft and hovered there, rock-solid. I moved it forward, back, left, right and then rotated it left and right (man is that set to a very slow rotate rate to begin with) and it went up and down just fine as well, all without moving an inch in any other direction than I wanted it to. I landed it and then made sure the camera moved up and down properly (again, super-slow rate to begin with) as well as good video and a fairly level horizon.
I shut it off and proceeded to do a few more launches and landings. I did do a test I saw in a video review where you put your hand underneath it and it ended up taking off in a weird direction horizontally. I grabbed it out of the air and proceeded to shut it down (strong little beast I will say), so no crash or anything. I have to determine if that was the proper action for it to take with an obstacle from below or if it was just poor lighting in the house at night that caused it to do that. I also have no idea if range is proper as I will need to fly it outside to determine that.
I then charged up the two remaining batteries, updated them in the drone before putting everything away for the evening. I also noticed that both in-app purchases for features were only $0.99 each so I bought both of them to unlock all options for the app. In reading reviews it looks like those options were $18-19 or some such prior, so does that mean this was a "holiday sale" or that they are going to be dropping support for the Anafi in the near future???
So, hopefully I have a solid drone with no issues that require warranty service, since it is HIGHLY questionable if I will get any coverage at all. It is just sad that a company as large as Parrot is so hap-hazard with their customers. Especially for a product such as the Anafi, requiring a receipt for something that is so clearly in the "giftable" category is just crazy. I could see if you could only purchase through specific specialty retailers, but they sell them through both Amazon and Best Buy. You can't get more "big box" than those two. I also highly doubt there is a large volume of these in the "grey-market" where they need to know where it came from. I mean isn't that what a serial number and an online activation is for, to verify ownership???
I can only imagine they have a completely different support team for their commercial products that are built on the Anafi framework. For the prices they charge for those I cannot see them expecting their customers to go through the stupidity I did.
