Canon on Call: We take a tour of Canon’s new Customer Support Center in Albuquerque, NM
posted Friday, November 13, 2015 at 1:59 PM EDT
In addition to their impressive Experience Center in Southern California, Canon USA has once again expanded its customer service footprint with the opening of a new Customer Support Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Amongst their five existing Service and Support Centers along the East Coast, West Coast and in the Midwest, this new southwest-based service center will allow Canon to better serve their multi-lingual customers as well as offer better tech support across multiple time zones.
Last month, IR was invited to take part in a tour of Canon's recently-opened, state-of-the-art Customer Support Center to get a look at just what goes into Canon's technical support and service operations. News of Canon's New Mexico-based service center was first released back in 2013, and according to Canon, the new Customer Support Center ultimately aims to create at least 150 new call-center jobs for the New Mexico area -- continuing Canon's drive to provide a completely US-based customer support system.
Canon's other next most-recent service center in Newport News, VA opened in 2011, serving as a central repair facility for Canon's imaging products, including cameras and lenses. On the other hand, this new 33,682-square-foot Albuquerque facility is focused solely on phone-based technical support for Canon's products, including small office equipment and consumer-level digital cameras, as well as their Cinema EOS product line and professional printing products.
On-site, the new Albuquerque call center is equipped with a room stocked with the latest and great in Canon printers, large and small, as well as copiers and other office print equipment. They even have a mini video studio room, complete with a green screen, stage lighting gear and editing computers, and of course all the Cinema EOS cameras ready to go as needed to test and diagnose issues. It's reassuring to know that if you encounter some odd behavior with a Canon printer or other product, the call center staff can actually put hands on that specific product, and either reproduce the issue or tell you where you've gone wrong with software or setup.
As Canon explained, one of the primary benefits to housing a technical support center in New Mexico is weather. The mild climate and limited risk of severe weather plays a major role in Canon's goal to provide uninterrupted customer service. Canon's primary tech support call center is located in Chesapeake, Virginia, and, given its location near the East Coast of the US, it runs the risk of severe weather that can disrupt operations. With the new Albuquerque facility, Canon can now distribute or otherwise off-load calls between these locations as needed.
So, the next time you give Canon a ring in need of a question answered for your camera, printer or copier, you might just be speaking to someone in the sunny Southwest!
All in all, Canon's investment in and commitment to customer service is significant. Having toured their Newport News, Irvine, and now Alburquerque facilities, we're very impressed with the extent of their focus on after-sale customer satisfaction. A company's commitment to service is usually invisible until you need to rely on it, and that's when you sometimes discover that you're dealing with someone 12 time-zones away who may never have gotten closer to the product than a photo in a brochure and script on their computer screen. Canon's made a huge investment to make sure that doesn't happen to their US customers.