Canon USA Changes the CPS Program

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Canon Rumors Guy

Canon EOS 40D
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Jul 20, 2010
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<p><strong>From Canon USA</strong>

The staff of CPS strives to provide imaging professionals like you with comprehensive service and support benefits. And we are always looking for opportunities to make the CPS program even better. After careful study and consideration, and with your valuable feedback, we are planning to roll out a number of enhancements and updates to the CPS program. The purpose of this email is to give you a summary of these enhancements and updates, which we anticipate will be effective for all members in two phases: the 4th quarter of 2013 and early 2014 with the introduction of a new CPS Cinema level. Details will be available on the CPS website as these enhancements and updates become available.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<p>The program updates and enhancements are as follows:</p>
<p>We are renaming the Clean & Check process to Canon Maintenance Service (CMS) and eliminating the paper voucher. The number of items that may be sent in for CMS is being increased for eligible CPS members. Platinum members will be able to send 10 eligible items and Gold members will be able to send 5 eligible items, during each membership year. The number of items sent in for CMS will be tracked by Canon internally.</p>
<p>Based on your feedback, we are shortening the period for each evaluation loan from two weeks to one week. This will also have the effect of increasing the total amount of equipment available for evaluation loans to eligible members.</p>
<p>In an effort to concentrate our efforts on our core professional members, we will no longer include the EOS 60D camera and future successor model cameras as qualifying equipment for any level. However, owners of such equipment will still be eligible to receive repair benefits covered by the program.</p>
<p>In early 2014, the Cinema EOS C100 camera and all Cinema Prime Lenses will be added as qualifying equipment to the CPS Gold and Platinum membership levels. And we are planning to launch a new CPS Cinema level tailored to owners of other Cinema EOS cameras and lenses.</p>
<p>In an effort to balance program benefits, we are adjusting the repair discounts from their current levels. Therefore, repair discounts are being changed to 30% for Platinum level members and 20% for Gold level members. Also, there will be a cap on the number of annual repairs to which the discount can be applied, Gold level members can receive the repair discount on a maximum of 10 eligible items and Platinum level members can receive the repair discount on a maximum of 15 eligible items.</p>
<p>The annual fee for Platinum membership will be reduced from $500 to $300. All current Platinum members will automatically receive a free six-month membership extension compliments of Canon (eligible members will be contacted with further details separately at a later date). The annual fee for the Gold membership level will remain at $100, and the Silver membership level will remain free to qualified professionals.</p>
<p>For organizations with large amounts of eligible Canon equipment and/or large photography staff, we are launching Enterprise CPS, which is designed to suit the needs of medium to large size organizations like newspapers, photo studios, rental houses, etc. In addition to some of the traditional CPS benefits, Enterprise CPS clients can receive benefits like on-site equipment maintenance, higher repair caps and streamlined billing. The details of this new program will be provided at a later date.</p>
<p>We have also increased our support of the professional imaging market in less direct, but significant ways. For example, you may have noticed that, during 2013, CPS increased the number of major sporting events, training workshops, and trade shows where on-site support is provided to eligible CPS members. These events are an important way for us to support and communicate with our members.</p>
<p>We recently opened two new service facilities, one in Hollywood, CA and another in Ridgefield Park, NJ just outside of New York City. These two new facilities are available to CPS Gold and Platinum level members (as well as our broadcast/cinema professionals). An advance reservation is required for all service and support requests handled by the Hollywood and Ridgefield Park facilities. CPS Gold and Platinum members requesting support should call the CPS hotline at 1 (888) CPS-4540 to make a reservation. And we are currently planning to open a third service facility that will support the Chicago market later this year. All with the goal of bringing Canon’s award-winning repair and maintenance services closer to our CPS members.</p>
<p>Although the CPS program is changing in some significant ways, some aspects of CPS member support are not going to change: our unwavering commitment to speed and quality, as well as acting on your repair and maintenance requests with repair turnaround times of two business days for Platinum members and three business days for Gold members, as more fully described in the program terms and conditions. Temporary loaners while products are in for repair will continue to be available per the terms and conditions of the various membership levels. And dedicated, priority support will still be available for CPS members via phone or email, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.</p>
<p>These enhancements will be rolled out via e-mail communications to our members, detailing the specific changes by membership level, effective date and describing new programs like Enterprise CPS and CPS Cinema. Ensuring your smooth transition to these new benefits is very important so we want to hear from you if you have any questions.</p>
<p>We are honored to have the opportunity to help you achieve success in your imaging pursuits and to support your passion for image-making. Thank you again for trusting Canon with supporting your business.</p>
 
As a gold CPS member, I do love that they included extra cleanings to my membership free of charge, but I am weary on the reduction of time with evaluations... So, we borrow a lens, they ship it on a 2 day ship, we ship back to them on a 2 day. So that leave us with 1 business day to really evaluate the lens, or 2 days if we want to overnight it. Kinda sucks on that regards. Also I was going to pick up a 70D for our studio, now with their policies I am second guessing that right now. hmmmm
 
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Pixel said:
Do we know for sure the week doesn't begin on arrival of the item?

The way it was (as of todays date), the 2 weeks STARTS when they ship the lens to when they get it back in their hands... Granted that usually gave you a little over a week to evaluate a lens... They haven't mentioned one way or the other about this new policy, and I have emailed them asking for clarification.
 
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gferdinandsen

was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker
Pixel said:
Do we know for sure the week doesn't begin on arrival of the item?

I suspect it's a week from when you get it; but with 3 day shipping that only gives you four days to evaluate the product. That to me is gravely insufficient, I would like at least 7 days.
 
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Jim O

Driving the short bus
Aug 6, 2013
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awinphoto said:
As a gold CPS member, I do love that they included extra cleanings to my membership free of charge, but I am weary on the reduction of time with evaluations... So, we borrow a lens, they ship it on a 2 day ship, we ship back to them on a 2 day. So that leave us with 1 business day to really evaluate the lens, or 2 days if we want to overnight it. Kinda sucks on that regards. Also I was going to pick up a 70D for our studio, now with their policies I am second guessing that right now. hmmmm

My reading indicates that the 70D would still be eligible for the benefits. just not for the points needed to get a particular membership level. The gear in your sig more than gets you to the Gold level where your 70D would indeed be covered for cleanings and repair discounts, at least for now...
 
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I just got a response back from CPS... Basically, the 70D (or 60D's) would be eligible for cleanings/service BUT, they would not count towards points. NOW, in the past, you had to register you gear with canon CPS and only registered gear gets service, but this kinda goes against that, so I wonder how that will work. They also confirmed the 1 week starts from day they mail it to day they get it back. I reiterated it really gives us less than 24 hours, may be even a few hours... If they mail a lens on monday 2 day shipping to us, we get the lens on wednesday. UPS doesn't ship on the weekends so for them to get the lens back in their hands by the following monday, it would need to be in the mail by thursday 2 days to get there, or friday on overnight. The majority of your week is stuck in the mail... kinda makes it not worth it if you ask me. Hopefully they will extend it to maybe 7 business days or something like that...
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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awinphoto said:
I reiterated it really gives us less than 24 hours... The majority of your week is stuck in the mail... kinda makes it not worth it if you ask me.

Yes, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

[quote author=Canon USA CPS]
Based on your feedback, we are shortening the period for each evaluation loan from two weeks to one week. This will also have the effect of increasing the total amount of equipment available for evaluation loans to eligible members.
[/quote]

Who's feedback, I wonder?

I can take a guess - the actual feedback was, "We have to wait too long to get our evaluation loan requests fulfilled." Given a fixed pool of loaners, reducing the evaluation period was the response.
 
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gferdinandsen

was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker
neuroanatomist said:
awinphoto said:
I reiterated it really gives us less than 24 hours... The majority of your week is stuck in the mail... kinda makes it not worth it if you ask me.

Yes, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

[quote author=Canon USA CPS]
Based on your feedback, we are shortening the period for each evaluation loan from two weeks to one week. This will also have the effect of increasing the total amount of equipment available for evaluation loans to eligible members.

Who's feedback, I wonder?

I can take a guess - the actual feedback was, "We have to wait too long to get our evaluation loan requests fulfilled." Given a fixed pool of loaners, reducing the evaluation period was the response.
[/quote]

I would rather wait two weeks go get eval equipment than I would to have 3 days to evaluate it, but to get it quicker. Hopefully they will get plenty of negative feedback regarding the new evaluation policy.
 
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For what it's worth, my second response from CPS about the loans when i reiterated that I, as a member in the west coast, would have just about 24 hours with a loan before I have to ship it back, they responded saying that was the best solution they can find. They said if anyone wants to complain or such, they should email [email protected]. So if any of you guys have any issues with the 1 week rule, email them in mass... =)
 
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awinphoto said:
For what it's worth, my second response from CPS about the loans when i reiterated that I, as a member in the west coast, would have just about 24 hours with a loan before I have to ship it back, they responded saying that was the best solution they can find. They said if anyone wants to complain or such, they should email [email protected]. So if any of you guys have any issues with the 1 week rule, email them in mass... =)

It would be nice if an admin could sticky this . . .
 
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this is nuts to me. canon sent me this email the other day listing all the things they are taking away and made it seem like they are doing me a favor.

the only reasons why i got cps gold was for the big repair discount and equipment loans. so now, they reduce the service discount and essentially eliminate loans?

nikon is sounding better every single day...
 
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Not a member yet. But the Gold level sounds pretty good. The ONLY thing that sucks is the eval period. 24 hours? You're joking... I think 3 days would be a minimum. You're not supposed to be using them to take on vacation or instead of renting them. So to test and play: 3-day of in-hand use would be fine. 5 days better.
 
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