Battleship Canon just fired a salvo at the Cruiser Nikon. And it hit hard. Mostly because Nikon put their bow right where it was vulnerable.
In a press release that reads more like a declaration of war, CanonUSA today released the results of blind survey of over 2300 professional, semi-professional, and advanced amateur photographers. Then they rubbed salt in the wound.
First, the wound:
- 76.9% of Canon customers who had a service experience in the last 18 months indicated it was fast or ultra-fast. Nikon? 64.7%.
- 90.4% of Canon customers indicated that they were satisfied or completely satisfied with the technical support they received. Nikon? 73.7%.
Ouch. But Nikon employees, as you’re reading this consider that I’ve been warning about this for some time now. Indeed, I presented Nikon corporate the disturbing results of own customer service surveys, so it’s not like you weren’t warned (e.g. >15% of those having a camera serviced by NikonUSA required a second trip to the service facility to get their product fixed correctly).
The only surprise in Canon’s press release is that they felt that it was appropriate to pull the gun out and shoot their competitor directly like this. Very un-Japanese.
But they didn’t stop with that. Canon went on in their press release to point out why they think their support is better: 10 locations with more than 300,000 square feet across the US, two US-based call centers and 100% US-based tech support (Nikon outsources first-level support), and the Canon Experience Center in Costa Mesa, CA, which not only offers service, but seminars and workshops. Then to rub things in, Canon is now also claiming service times that average 2.82 days (1.59 for CPS Platinum members).
That’s a direct hit on Cruiser Nikon. Two more and they’re sunk.
So what to make of all this? Simple. Canon has decided that if the camera market is going to continue to collapse, the only way for them to grow sales is to take down competitors. Game on.
And you Sony folk shouldn’t be guffawing. Sony is in Battleship Canon’s sights, too.
