originally posted february 08, 2004
good customer service
I spend an awful lot of time complaining about the little nuances of everyday life. I blame my "Seinfeld" addiction: of the 180 episodes produced during the show's run, I have 133 on my hard drive. Nevertheless, I have had the good fortune recently to deal with some genuinely nice companies and people. They deserve a lot of the credit for keeping me almost sane.
wacky flat tire adventure
The secret to car maintenance: if it's not working, you're not kicking it hard enough.
Winter has not been kind to Pittsburgh this year. There has been a lot of snow and temperatures straddle the freezing mark. Budget cutbacks have affected virtually every aspect of city life, including road maintenance. This makes my walk to work more of a skate across large patches of ice, and all the potholes make for a very rough drive. Last Friday, I was driving my friend Brian home to CMU and hit a particularly hard pothole. My right front tire was punctured and the wheel was dented. Volkswagen helpfully provides roadside assistance and a full-size spare. Unfortunately for us, my roadside assistance had expired (I thought it was good for four years from date of purchase; it was actually only two) and we couldn't get the lugnuts off the flat tire.
Several phone calls later, I was faced with a pathetically unfixed tire and a $70 charge from a towing company -- which would take hours to respond to my request. Not long thereafter, a Campus Police car pulled over and Officer Hendershot offered his assistance. With heaping spoonfuls of humility, Brian and I explained our situation. The officer helped us get the lugnuts off by kicking the lug wrench extremely hard. From there, it was a simple matter to jack up the car and change the tire. Brian did most of the work despite my offers to help.
Ask around at CMU, and you're likely to hear some bad stories about Campus Police. This time, they came through for me when nobody else could help. I am extremely grateful to Officer Hendershot and to Brian for helping me through this experience.
The following day, I had the tire repaired and signed up for AAA.
the little grill that could
Early last year, I was ready to give up on cooking. I had no experience, little free time, and no desire to learn. Then I went to Target and picked up a small George Foreman grill for about $13. Since then, I have used the grill a few times a week to prepare simple meals. What has really awed me about the grill, though, is the quality of customer service that its manufacturer associates with it.
The manual for the grill contains recommended cooking times and recipes for various meats. Last August, the humidity caused the pages of the manual to stick together, forcing me to read the French instructions. ("Le gril? What the hell is that?!" -- Homer Simpson) I wrote a letter to Salton/Maxim, the company which manufactures the grill, explaining the situation and requesting a new manual. I expected to be ignored or sent an invoice, but they promptly sent a new manual and a letter in response.
The grill comes with a small tray designed to catch fats and other liquids that drip out during cooking. The tray is dishwasher-safe, so I routinely put it in my dishwasher after using the grill. About a month ago, the tray slipped through the slats in the dishwasher's shelves. The machinery in my dishwasher tore a large gash in the tray, rendering it nearly unusable. Again I wrote to Salton/Maxim and again I expected to be ignored. This time, I thought they would reject my request because my own negligence was the cause. Imagine my surprise when they came through again, sending a new tray free of charge!
Companies often place a price on customer service, claiming that it costs a few dollars to satisfy a request such as mine. My requests probably erased Salton/Maxim's profit margin on my grill, but they should be confident that I would buy another one of their products.
not all computer companies suck
Ever since Compaq became part of the New HP, its technical support has gone down the tubes. Most computer companies have slashed customer support to make up for the razor-thin margins on their hardware. When my monitor (a Samsung SyncMaster 955DF that I bought about 2½ years ago) started flickering and blinking at random, I assumed the worst. Amazingly, Samsung warranted this monitor for three years from the date of purchase.
I reached a Samsung customer service rep on Saturday. He told me to try the monitor with a different computer, as the video card may be to blame. I plugged the monitor into my laptop, but the problem recurred. Even when I changed the video card in my desktop, the monitor still flickered. I called back. They shipped a refurbished monitor of the same model to a local UPS Store. I brought my broken monitor to the store. The staff unpacked the new model and even helped me bring it across the icy street to my car. The only painful part of this process was lugging the 50-pound monitor to and from my car. If this monitor breaks while out of warranty, I'm getting a flat-panel display.
Lately, my laptop has started to act up again. When I move the computer around while it is powered up, the speakers make horrible static. The system is still under warranty for about eight more months, but I dread the inevitable call and hold time with Compaq's poorly-outsourced tech support. Guess I can't win 'em all.
Back to February 2004, or to the year 2004.
![[weill aspects]](/aspects/small-logo.png){kind=logo}
![[Back to home]](/GLOBE.GIF){kind=small}