Sony CISC

thumb|right|200px|Another image of the Sony "Customer Information Service Center", located in Fort Myers, Florida.Headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, the Sony Customer Information Service Center (CISC) is a part of Sony Electronics, or SEL [http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/corporate_news/release/8485.html] . The CISC was started in the early 1990s and had initially been located in a warehouse in downtown Fort Myers, Florida, until completion of a two-story facility located in a Lee County community called Gateway, in 1996.

Sometime in 2004, according to speculation and unconfirmed reports, Sony HQ Tokyo and Sony America San Diego HQ began discussions regarding the company's future support needs and the role of the CISC. While there may yet be some aspects of those discussions which are confidential or otherwise proprietary or trade secret, many of those decisions began to be implemented mid-way through 2005, and with the retirement of Mrs. Maureen Reed later that year, became essentially public knowledge shortly thereafter.

In January, 2006, Sony Electronics President Daniel Wiersma held an all-hands meeting at the Holiday Inn Bell Tower conference center located in Fort Myers, Florida, at which he announced a near-total restructuring of SEL's technical support needs and a plan to gradually phase out Sony operations at the Gateway facility, with a projected phase-out period of five years. Up to this point, there were three tiers of technical support and review at the facility: Tier 1/Consumer Rep, Tier 2/Consumer Specialist, and the Escalation Group, which interfaces with both computer electronics and consumer electronics products. Under Mr. Wiersma's announced plan, Tier 1 and Consumer representative positions were to be "transitioned" to the third-party call center company Alorica, which had also agreed to sub-sub-let the top floor of the facility. The Tier 2 and Consumer Specialist positions were eliminated entirely. The Escalation Group, Business and Professional Group, National/International Customer Relations and other core support groups (IT, telco, etc.) would be retained by Sony and would all, as necessary, be re-located to the ground floor. In all, by the deadline of March 31, 2006, some 170 positions would be eliminated.

The Tier 2/Consumer Specialist positions, as well as those groups which handled the more functional parts of service logistics were all migrated to other unused sections of the San Diego headquarters campus.

Support organisations for Asia-Pacific and Europe exist as separate entities and are headquartered elsewhere, typically within the region they support.

Facility functions and areas of responsibility

The Sony Customer Information "Service" Center is the headquarters for the following North American distribution lines of the following products (please note: these lists are "not" exhaustive):

Consumer Electronics:
* Televisions (CRT, LCD, plasma, etc.)
* CD, DVD and DVD/CD players (portable, single, changer, and jukebox-style)
* Video cameras (VHS, VHS-C, S-VHS, Mini8, Super8, Digital8, etc.)
* Walkman portable cassette and CD players
* Cordless telephones
* Cell phones (Sony and Sony/Ericsson)
* Sony-branded DirecTV
* WebTV

Entertainment Electronics:
* AiBO Robotic Animal

Computer Electronics:
* VAIO Desktop and Notebook computers
* CRT and LCD computer monitors
* Palm OS-based CLIE PDAs

Business and Professional Group:
* JumboTron
* Sony rack-mounted server systems
* Sony portable film and television production rigs
* Digital PhotoFinishing Kiosks located Nationwide (USA)
* Passport Cameras and Printers
* Broadcast level cameras and camcorders

Sony Cierge Group:
* Cierge does not really have an exclusive product range, per se; they are an invitation-only membership-driven premium support program offered typically to executives of large companies, celebrities, and other similarly-situated persons. Membership offers immediate "head-of-queue" access to upper-tier techs, and immediate and/or on-site repair or replacement of any Sony product.

National Customer Relations "and" International Customer Relations

Leadership

The last permanent head of the CISC was SEL Vice President Maureen Reed.

The person currently leading operations at the CISC is Mr. David Christopher.

"Please note: this section is being left deliberately incomplete during this round of editing. It is requested that anyone with accurate and reasonably complete information or knowledge help Wikipedia by helping to fill in this section. Thank you."

Recent developments

In June, 2006, Spanish-language support for domestic U.S. customers and Central/South American customers was re-established after a period of hiatus at an Argentina-based third-party call center company named Teleperformance. This facility is manned by a team of approximately 30 agents who are tasked with support for Sony's VAIO notebook and desktop computers, as well as Sony's line of consumer electronics, such as televisions, DVD players, digital recorders, video and still-image cameras, and sound systems. Unlike their English-only counterparts, these agents are empowered to make determinations of hardware failure and arrange service as necessary to resolve customers' product concerns.

In June 2007, Alorica transitioned the Sony technical support to another location, having replaced it with their support account for a warehouse retailer.

See also

* Teleperformance
* Alorica
* Sony
* Sony Electronics, Inc.

Sources

* CapeDude2005 (original author of the article) is a former Sony Electronics, Inc., employee who worked at this facility for approximately five years.
* [http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/corporate_news/release/8485.html Sony Electronics, Inc. press release regarding the Customer Information Services Center]
*David Joseph - Worked at Alorica, Clovis. The Sony Vaio Call Center.