Tag: customer service

Apple Service Experience was AWESOME

apple logo As you may know, my beloved iPod touch died recently. On Sunday, April 6th, I went to plug it in to charge it, and it fried. Wouldn’t turn on or reset or anything. I poked around the support website for a bit, but I was fairly certainly I’d have to get it serviced.

I found myself wishing this had happened after Canada Day – a new Apple Store is opening up in West Edmonton Mall on July 1st, 2008. I had no choice but to fill out the service request online. It told me to expect a package with instructions in two business days, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

Then, on Tuesday the 8th, I received the package. Count me as surprised! The instructions were really easy to follow, so I packaged up my iPod and dropped it off at UPS later that day. I figured waiting for the replacement would take a while, so I sort of forgot about it. And of course, I traveled to San Antonio this weekend.

Less than a week later, on the afternoon of Monday the 14th, my replacement iPod touch was delivered! How’s that for turnaround time?! Of course, I didn’t get back to town until last night, so I didn’t get to restore my iPod until today.

Restoring, by the way, was dead simple. I plugged it in, registered it with my Apple account, and then chose the option to restore my previous iPod. After a few minutes I found myself with everything exactly the way it was before. And I do mean everything (well except the passcode lock, which makes sense). Even the last page I had opened in Safari reloaded!

I’ve heard some good things and some bad things about Apple’s service, but I had never needed to use it until this happened. I’m so happy to report that it was a superb experience.

Thanks Apple!

Telus Mobility surprises me with a free gift!

I received an interesting package in the mail today from Telus Mobility. A little white box with the phrase “Happy Anniversary” on the front was waiting for me! I opened it up to find a letter thanking me for being a customer since 2003. Actually, I’ve been a customer since 2000 but my first three-year contract was under my business partner’s name. I’ve written about Telus quite a few times on my blog, sometimes because of something bad, sometimes because of something good. This is obviously one of the good things!

Happy Anniversary from Telus Mobility

Wondering what was in the box? In addition to the letter, they sent me a three-in-one phone charger! It’s a pretty neat little gadget, plugs into the wall or a car outlet, and has a couple of cables with different connectors on it. And a little bag to store the cables in.

Letter from Telus Unboxing! 3-in-1 Phone Charger Cables & Charger

Thanks Telus! My current contract is up around November, and while it’s unlikely I’d have gone through the hassle of switching anyway, this makes it even easier to decide. Combined with some customer service improvements recently, Telus Mobility is starting to do more things right than wrong. Now if only they could get the cool new phones sooner 🙂

Speak Clearly Please!

Post ImageAs I mentioned a few days ago, my desktop computer sort of died. Essentially the hard drive that I installed Windows and all my applications to failed (but my separate data drive is fine). Easy enough to fix, but it kind of happened at a good time too. We needed some computers around here at Paramagnus to do various bits of processing, and our development machines were getting fairly sluggish. So with that in mind, we’ll use our old ones for the processing, and we ordered some new machines from Dell.

Now I have read countless accounts in the blogosphere about how crappy Dell’s support is, and I have some friends who love Dell and some who hate it. The reason we went with Dell is that the price was just too good, and I like how they list the details of every component on the site. Everything went smoothly online, but for some reason, they called me and I had to call them back. Dickson also had to call (we did a couple of orders for various reasons). That’s where things went downhill.

Why can’t I speak to someone I can understand?! Everyone I have spoken with at Dell except for one person had a heavy Indian accent (or whatever nationality they are, it doesn’t matter). So much of an accent, that I can’t make our most of what they are saying! If you’re going to hire people to talk to customers, at least make sure the customers will be able to understand them!

Now don’t go getting all huffy at me. I’m not complaining so much about the accent as about the fact that I can’t understand the representatives. Whether they have a heavy accent, are slurring or mumbling, or for whatever other reason cannot speak clearly, it’s all the same to me – they shouldn’t be working in customer support.