After receiving information from Tahoe_Ed regarding DJI moving and hiring additional staff (see hereafter) it is time to stop generating negative threads regarding DJI repair time.

Tahoe_Ed from DJI stated in a thread the following:"Yes we are moving in July.  Yes we will be adding more staff in the process.  We will be in front of need finally.  Our service and support times will be the industry leader.  It has taken us a while to get there.  When we moved to the 15,000 square foot facility in Torrance it was thought that it would last us 2-3 years.  Not.  6 months.  If we outgrow over 100,000 square feet in the next year I would be surprised.  But you know stuff happens"

Yeah I'm with you! No more complaints! I sent my Inspire in for repair yesterday, I look forward to receiving it back by Sept.

Mines in for repairs right now. I'll see how long it takes and post the times when they have finished and shipped it back to me. I broke a tube when it hit a pole and fell to hit the cement from 8 feet up. Pilot error. The wind came up and gusted as I went by the pole and I was not far enough away to respond in time. I also went the wrong way with the stick adding to the crash. I am now practicing every day with a flight sim so hopefully this does not happen again and also help my reflexes do the correct thing when something happens.

jlivingston6@ve Posted at 2015-6-2 22:51
Mines in for repairs right now. I'll see how long it takes and post the times when they have finishe ...

Been there, but not with the IN1.  Well before, so I know how it fells{:2_38:}

jlivingston6@ve Posted at 2015-6-2 22:51
Mines in for repairs right now. I'll see how long it takes and post the times when they have finishe ...

Without an Inspire-1 which flight simulator are you using?

Great post, rbaaij.  I love the way it addresses people from Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia.  These are lands beyond America's borders that DJI also sells into if you didn't already know.

As a business owner myself, I have always found that doing business right the first time helps me to keep more of my money in my pocket. No need to hire additional staff(Only To Let Them Go When No Longer Needed).No need to acquire additional working space(Unplanned Overhead)It also carries a lot of weight towards customer opinion which directly equates to product loyalty which is something that DJI in particular will need when other companies enter this growing arena.

Ugly truth....Leading the industry in cleaning up your companies irresponsible endeavors is in a small way like BP looking for kudos after cleaning up the gulf coast.
There would be no need for cleanup had there been no spill.Nothing personal   rbaaij.
Just calling it like it is.

Not nice to urinate on the customers back and tell them that it is rain.

Shame on you DJI.    Scraping Boney Fingers At Monitor

rbaaij Posted at 2015-6-2 23:07
Without an Inspire-1 which flight simulator are you using?

I am using RF5.7 (RealFlight). It comes with its own controller and has a lot of planes, choppers and some quads, one is the Phantom 2. I asked them to include the Inspire 1 and they are working on it.

Michael Starley Posted at 2015-6-3 01:32
As a business owner myself, I have always found that doing business right the first time helps me to ...

Yep and they just don't get it, people have a right to be mad.

That's your problem not the consumers. We have a right to good service and a right to be mad,  plan Ahead and show the customer they are important.  You brag in the press that DJI is a bIllion dollar company, act like it.

Thankfully 2016 will usher in a whole wave of American companies building and supporting new drone platforms.  Competition is exactly what DJI needs.  

Running out floor space in six months also tells me that way way to many drones are coming back for repair.  We have a right to be mad, so until you develop a customer service department to front end consumer issues we are going to vent our anger right here in the forum.

dennis@aerialpe Posted at 2015-6-3 02:15
That's your problem not the consumers. We have a right to good service and a right to be mad,  plan  ...

Multi Billion dollar company in three years I was reading... Dji seems to have done better than some American made stuff , and in many cases has way better customer relations than tons of u.s. Companies
I've dealt with through the years....  

How about you EARN the appreciation of your customer base before DEMANDING it? DJI you have done NOTHING but provide ZERO customer service from day one. Now that you have a plan to provide better service you want your customer to shut their mouths and just take it like always before you have even accomplished anything?

The arrogance of this company is epic.

"the floggings will continue until service improves. "  Some Pirate with a drone

Hermosa Drones  You are correct sir!!

Well someone is hugging DJI's nut sack. You have no clue about business, obviously, because you would not be crying for people to stop. How about you start a thread "No more threads about No more negative threads regarding DJI repair time"?
DJI is the epitome of how not to run a business.

I called today and was told 5-6 weeks for repair.  Keep bitching until this goes down.   Companies like gopro are on the tail end but will light a fire under DJI to get things done quicker.  5-6 weeks is not acceptable to me.   Sorry

dennis I feel your pain.   My anger comes from knowing that they do get it.  They do.   

Scenario
Mr. Wang(Founder Of DJI) on  a date and driving his new automobile.  A nice car.  The kind of car that impresses the ladies and causes men to feel jealous.
Together in life and love Mr. Wang and his date enjoy mile after mile of an intimate drive....where to, is of no concern. He peacocks,she giggles.
On through the night they enjoy each others conversation,have some fresh sushi,and leave the sushibar for some dancing.

Caught up in the moment and having no intentions of spoiling the mood,Mr.Wangs new car travels without haste towards the next enchanting moment.
When suddenly A Bang!!...Then A Screech!!...Then A Total Loss Of Control!!
Vehicle sceeches to a hault!  He checks on his date...Are you ok he asks??(Long Pause)   
Finally she moves her head as if to signal all is well.  Wheew! He thinks to himself.
Now to see what went wrong.
Feeling sick to his stomach,full of emarasment,and angry at the loss of the moment he visually inspects the damage.
Looking at his right front wheel he observes.....no wheel!! Turns out that the manufacturer did not tighten his lugnuts.

Multiple Choice
A-Mr. Wang apologizes to his date.Makes arrangements for her transportation. Has his ill-fated purchase towed home where he then makes arrangements to have it shipped to the manufacturer?   Or
B-Contacts manufacturer, tolerates 0 runaround, demands a full refund joined by the threat of a lawsuit if this matter is not handled in a timely matter? Or
C-Accepts offer from manufacturer for a 50% discount on the newest unproven model?  

que the cheesy jeapordy theme music.

Moral of the story.......wait for it........wait......."..................don't let mr wang fail while on a date.  ;)

That scenario is completely ficticious.  It is only posted for perspective purpose. Having posted that, this  is my anger summed up.This company knows for a fact that they have a major problem on their hands.(Hince The Boast About The New Large Repair Center).I for one am sick and tired of being deemed too stupid to know the difference between where fudge is made and a hole in the ground.   Humility speaks volumes for an individual.

How much loyalty would this company curry if only they were humble?

I can hear your frustration rbaaij.
Not sure that your tone will resonate or do anything to resolve the lack of confidence (deserved or not) of your customer base. Not sure what your intentions actually are with this post but it's great news that the expansion is underway and your US / Canada clients will have access to an expanded service capability.

I learned this week that an authorised repair centre is being setup in my home town (Melbourne, Australia) - couldn't be happier with that news and very appreciative that the distributor has put in the time and financial investment to create this capability locally.  Hopefully I'll never have to use their services, but I'm glad they are there!

Moral of the story.   

Do not believe for 1 second of your life that the power salaries and triple digit employees of this company tolerate the caliber of customer service that they expect you too.

"...it is time to stop generating negative threads regarding DJI repair time."

This is arrogant, egotistical, and an insult to anyone DJI has put in the position to feel the pain of the unacceptable wait times for support and repair.

Admiration, trust, and respect are earned -- not the result of a demand.

Well, let's see how my recent Auto Take-off flyaway repair tracks.  
  - Fedex tracking says it arrived at DJI, Torrance, CA on Friday May 22nd,
  - Tuesday June 2nd (11 days after arrival) I was notified that "your package has been received and is now checked into our software"

Story to continue as I get updates

The truth is always worth posting.

Don't like it, change it.  

After it changes I'm sure the posts will change too.

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-6-3 08:56
I can hear your frustration rbaaij.
Not sure that your tone will resonate or do anything to resolve  ...

Gday Farnk,

I am in Melbourne too - haven't heard of a repair centre for here yet - can you share where it will be and when it is due for opening?.

Wolfman Posted at 2015-6-3 14:26
Gday Farnk,

I am in Melbourne too - haven't heard of a repair centre for here yet - can you share ...

Hey Wolfman,

Colin from EE Hobbies made the announcement on the DJI Inspire Aus owners FB page last week.
They have had people trained in China and will have their setup open in a couple of weeks.

Awesome news, means that there won't be any need to ship back to China!

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-6-3 14:53
Hey Wolfman,

Colin from EE Hobbies made the announcement on the DJI Inspire Aus owners FB page la ...

Thanks for the info Farnk, Oakleigh is definitely closer than Shenzhen!

My Inspire was sent to Germany three weeks ago. As I had not heard anything (UPS had delivered it) I sent an email to find out what was going on. The next day coincidence or not I get an invoice for repair cost.

190 euros to repair the arm. Ok, but how to pay. I rung them up and they cannot yet take card payments only by direct bank transfer, coming soon she said but seems strange to me why that has not been set up.

Anyway I have had to go to my bank and they have arranged the payment.

But perhaps things are moving on, here is a quote from the email.

'We are very sorry for the current delay in the processing of your quotation.
We are stocking up our staff to solve this issue immediately.'


Hopefully I'll get my Inspire back soon but the bank says it can take up to four days for the payment to go through!!

Glad to see this post. Thank you

I see that a number of people in this thread have misunderstood rbaaij's post and assumed rbaaij is a DJI employee.

No, actually rbaaij is a fellow Inspire user whose Inspire is currently in for repair (see the thread at http://forum.dji.com/thread-15610-1-1.html).

The reason for the confusion is apparently the second paragraph of rbaaij's message.  Those are Tahoe_Ed's words, cut and pasted from another message.  The lack of quotation marks makes it appear that they are rbaaij's words, making it appear that rbaaij is speaking on behalf of DJI.  Not so.  The fact is that rbaaij has been sharply (and justifiably) critical of the long repair wait times.  It appears that this post was an attempt to be positive about the news of a larger repair center and staff gearing up in July.

Thought it might be worth pointing out.  I agree it would have been REALLY arrogant if DJI had originated this thread.

I think the thread is appropriate.   Companies that don't listen or don't make adjustments get surpassed by other companies that make these changes and adapt quickly.   Soon, more companies will make consumer drones.  It's coming.   What will distinguish one company from the other is customer service and repair times.   I bought an inspire.  But if I get soured on the experience,  I will never buy another.....future product.  

PeteGould Posted at 2015-6-3 20:22
I see that a number of people in this thread have misunderstood rbaaij's post and assumed rbaaij is  ...

Hi PeteGould,
Thank you for this clarification. Yes my Inspire-1 is at DJI for repair and yes I copied the Tahoe_Ed  statement from one of his threads and yes I thought what Tahoe_Ed stated was good news not so much for my DJI repair time but for future repair times.

rbaaij Posted at 2015-6-4 01:59
Hi PeteGould,
Thank you for this clarification. Yes my Inspire-1 is at DJI for repair and yes I co ...

Yeah - I saw what was happening and watched tempers flaring more and more.  I hope it was okay to add that comment to the thread.  It looked as though people were getting mad at DJI for something they didn't do (and your post made perfect sense too as long as people understood the context).

PeteGould Posted at 2015-6-4 03:12
Yeah - I saw what was happening and watched tempers flaring more and more.  I hope it was okay to  ...

Hi PeteGould,
I modified my initial thread to emphasize that the statement was from Tahoe_ed and not from me.
Thanks again

Thanx PeteGould.
Once again rbaij nothing personal toward you with my post.

Hope all is well with your bird.I understand.  Not only does it suck tailpipe waiting....you also have to wait to get back in the air.
Although I am hard on this company about the obvious(No Need To Beat This Drum In The Ground).  I do love flying the bird.. I know you do as well.
Good Luck Man.

As you can see by the response I am not wrong.  I started a business based around DJI products.  Laying out a ton of capital on DJI  hardware.   Not all on DJI hardware  but a significant amount.  Could you imagin trying to run a business if all my hardware MFG treated me this way.  if Hp, Adobe, Microsoft, Qwest, Verizon, Vizio, Cannon, etc ,etc ,etc treated me this way.  I would have failed from the start  And You DJI are what the entire business is base around AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY.  Get your act together man.

All comments and opinions are right on in here. Michael, I really like all your comments. There are many other solutions to fix the problem of the long wait times. Looking for a new place, closing on the deal, hiring all the people takes too long. There are other places I am sure that could have been rented while getting the larger place or maybe, wait....Maybe they could let their distributors repair some of the Inspires. Solves space issue and time issue. Yes, the serious stuff could go to CA but come on, a lot of the repairs I have seen in here could have been done by the owners or a local RC hobby store if parts were made available. Am I missing something here. Please enlighten me if I am.

houston Posted at 2015-6-6 14:44
Am I missing something here. Please enlighten me if I am.

You're not missing a thing - that's what they should be doing.  DJI has a network of dealers with in-house repair facilities.  As with automotive manufacturers, the best solution is ALWAYS going to be a local dealer, properly trained to perform repairs and with access to parts.

Unfortunately, DJI had an unspecified "bad experience" with allowing dealerships to perform repairs, and they responded as we've seen: by pulling all repairs in-house.  Obviously this gives DJI more control, especially over the training of the repair techs.  However the other side of that is huge shipping expenses for the customer, long delays, bottlenecks, and sometimes diminished quality control when the facility becomes so overloaded that there's a huge push for throughput.

I've been told in another thread that we're unlikely to see a return to authorized local or regional repair centers.  I think that's SO unfortunate that I believe there will be an increasing customer backlash against it.  One of the biggest problems I see is one that hasn't been mentioned here anywhere: the reluctance of a customer with "something questionable going on" with their Inspire to send it in, knowing they're losing it for several weeks.  Even with the new facility, if you're on the East Coast of the USA, your Inspire will spend a week in transit to LA plus a week back - so you've lost two weeks right there even if they fixed it same-day.  As a result, I can see customers experiencing more product failures as they cross their fingers and fly a questionable aircraft rather than losing all that time (and money: shipping isn't cheap, either).

A regionalized or localized carry-in repair service would encourage more customers to do more preventive maintenance and more double-checking when something doesn't seem quite 100%.  That benefits everyone, including DJI.  I don't know what it will take to get them to see it that way and remedy whatever was wrong with their original approach to dealer-based-repairs rather than just canceling them.

When I sent my Inspire in for repair five weeks ago, it took over two weeks for it to be checked in, and I was told another 4 weeks for repairs. I later sent in a Phantom 2V+ and this week, two weeks after receipt, they told me it's been checked in and it will take 5-6 weeks for repair. So the line continues to grow longer and longer, and wait times continue to extend farther into the future. Both of these are warranty repairs which do not get prioritized over pilot error damages, crashes or other non-defective product issues. It all goes into the same line.

What they should be doing is adding another facility, not moving to a new one. Moving will introduce a whole new category of logistical issues that will add more more delays to their process. Things will get worse before they get better. It's entirely likely that 4-5-month repair cycles will become a reality for DJI between now and end of year.

I've been a big fan of DJI and hope they can get their act together. But if I have to send another aircraft in for service I will look for an alternate company to do the work. And if another drone company can get a decent product out the door in the short term (3DR?), I will almost certainly head in that direction for my next aircraft.