Item: AVI-SPL
Rating: 6
Author: Tim Johnson

Overall Satisfaction with AVI-SPL

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

They are one of our five on-call audio-visual integrators.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Great technicians
Good installs
Pricing on components

Cons

Invoicing
Service calls
Scheduling
Warranty

Return on Investment

Negative impact on service - having to pay $150 fee to open a service call is, in my opinion, a joke.
Having to reconcile invoices since they have difficulty matching invoices with the purchase orders
Missing out on opportunities since their corporate offices cannot approve or turn around estimates as quickly as their competitors

In my opinion, they now have the worse warranty terms of all of my integrators and having to pay a fee to open a service call is a joke. Several of DVN's former customers (purchased by AVI-SPL) have reached out to me to ask about having our other integrators take over service, as dealing with AVI-SPL from a service standpoint is a pain. That said, the local office provides incredible service, and when I am allowed to work directly with that office, there are no issues.

Employee Productivity

All we have had AVI-SPL is install some camera and microphone set-ups for classrooms. This has allowed professors to provide remote instruction. However, we outfitted the bulk of our classrooms in-house.

Alternatives Considered

AVI-SPL is not a product but an integrator. I have four other on-call vendors, and AVI-SPL went from our go-to vendor to our second or third choice. Our feeling is that AVI-SPL has been more focused on purchasing other integrators than servicing their existing customer base.

Key Insights

Do you think AVI-SPL delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with AVI-SPL's feature set?

Yes

Did AVI-SPL live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of AVI-SPL go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy AVI-SPL again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

When they purchased Digital Video Networks, they got a great team, really good technicians, sales, and project management. Now that they have been purchased by AVI-SPL, in my experience, we have to deal with corporate to schedule service, quotes take a longer time, and their warranty terms are by far the worse of all of our integrators. In my experience, they cannot correctly invoice the university for work, either with incorrect items or by sending to the wrong individual. They went from our go-to vendor to our second or third choice for new jobs. We have actually had other vendors take over the service since AVI-SPL will not warranty their work past 90 days.

Comments

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AVI-SPL has lost customer focus.