Connected homes filled with Anywhere consumer devices sound like such happy places. But  consumer electronics vendors forget that such connectivity also means that consumers get to see their every mistake, and some of those mistakes can be bad for their brands—very bad.

Jarrett Sloan, one of YG’s software gurus, recently had the misfortune of personally experiencing one of Samsung’s mistakes on his Samsung HT-BD1250 Blu-ray home theater system. Samsung recently issued a firmware update for that system, and Jarrett dutifully applied the update using his wireless Internet connection. All was well and good until the system restarted, at which point the system only displayed “LOAD”. His system had been “bricked” by the update.

Now this needn’t have been fatal. Most consumer electronics manufacturers go through at least one bad update in their lives, so Samsung isn’t unique with this problem. But the obvious way to drive good customer satisfaction when a bad update like this happens is to smother the client with customer service—pay the shipping to return the unit, cross-ship a new unit to the customer, maybe give the customer a gift certificate for a free movie for their trouble. This stuff is in the standard playbook at places that obsess about customer service such as Apple, Panasonic, and Sony.

Sadly, Samsung never read that playbook.

Ever since Jarrett’s device got bricked, he’s been on the phone for hours with Samsung customer support. In one call, he was told they wouldn’t do anything for him because this problem clearly had to be his fault. After escalating to a supervisor, he was told he’d have to pay to ship his system back for repair with no promises about who would pay for the repair. When he asked when he might receive a new system, he got several answers ranging from a week to the latest answer which as 6-10 weeks. Yet no one he has spoken to has ever apologized for the fact he has a Samsung product updated by Samsung software that now has become a very expensive doorstop.

In the pre-Anywhere era, this tale of woe might have gone unheralded. But we do live in an Anywhere media age, and similar tales of woe are now being promulgated on forums from CNET to Engadget HD to AV Science. Needless to say, Samsung’s brand is not getting the best treatment in those forums.

This tale of woe contains some lessons for the consumer electronics industry now relying on Anywhere devices to push out new features to consumers. At the risk of lobbying for motherhood and apple pie, here are some do’s and don’ts that Samsung and other CE manufacturers might want to pin up on the bulletin board in their firmware release group:

• Think about post-purchase experiences. Connected devices continue the consumer’s relationship with the vendor past the device purchase event. Adding new features to CE devices via updates is an opportunity to further delight consumers, but at the same time, those updates also provide opportunities to disappoint them too. Make sure your brand is associated more with delights than disappointments.
• Design gear so that there’s a firmware backup. Apparently the HT-BD1250 has a place to back up known good firmware, allowing consumers to recover when an update goes bad. Sadly, Samsung’s software releases don’t use it. They should, as should all other manufacturers. Otherwise, little glitches in the update process turn into big customer support problems.
• Don’t do new firmware releases near the holidays. Part of the nightmare that Samsung faces is the fact that many consumers have already bought electronics as gifts to be opened Christmas morning. And when those consumers update their systems with new firmware, an entirely new wave of complaints will swamp already flooded customer support lines. Companies can avoid this customer service overload by locking down firmware releases from October 1 through January 15.
• When a problem occurs, use it as an opportunity to make the consumer feel good. If Samsung customer support had admitted to the problem and offered to make it right quickly, this firmware update wouldn’t have been the disaster it has turned into. Whatever the money needed to replace these units might be, the damage to Samsung’s brand from poor handling will be greater. When companies admit mistakes and make them right, consumers recommend them to their friends. But when they don’t admit those mistakes, consumers never buy from them again. Which position would your firm rather be in?

UPDATE: Jarrett made contact with a Samsung agent on Twitter who both apologized for the improper responses by the phone team and has offered to replace his unit in 5-10 days. Comcast’s Frank Elaison may have been the first to popularize Twitter customer service, but it’s nice to see other companies (and especially Samsung) taking a page from his book.