Tag: customer service

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Marketing Social Networks

Customer Service is marketing. Get it?

The day the iPhone 4s came out I had it. Love it. It’s great. Part of the pomp and ceremony associated with getting such a fancy device is to accessorize it. Chargers and cables and apps and all. The most important accessory to most is the protective case.
My iPhone 3GS was protected for the entire duration of our intense two year relationship by a case made by a brand called Incase. I liked it so much that when I was at BestBuy and saw people shopping for cases, I’d stop and tell them to pay the extra money (Incase cases retail for a plum $35) and get the Incase case.
So it was a foregone conclusion that on day 2 of my new iPhone’s life that I go get a new Incase case for it. And I did at Target, instead of buying a knockoff or bulk package from Amazon. I respected the product and was willing to pay for quality.
Two weeks later a crack appeared in the case near the headphone jack. A piece then fell off. It looked pretty bad. Naturally I went to Incase’s website and filled out the return form to request a replacement. An email was sent to me pretty quickly asking me to email a photo of the purchase receipt along with a photo of the damaged case so I can get an RMA number. I did.
I never heard back.
I tweeted Incase and got a response that I will get a response within 1-3 weeks’ time.

Really?

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General Shopping

Why you should avoid Grohe bathroom fixture products

6 months ago, my wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to renovate our two bathrooms. The kids got a beautiful and simple bath arrangement while our master bathroom's shower was outfitted with several fixtures made by German bath fixture manufacturer Grohe. Grohe's brand name and positioning places it where you would find BMW in the car world totem pole. Expensive, great design and supposed bullet-proof reliability. Just to be sure, we purchased the fixtures from an authorized Grohe dealer in Waltham, MA, Peabody Plumbing Supply.

So it was truly disappointing that 10 days ago I stepped into our beautiful shower only to find out that the diverter valve, the part that switches between the overhead shower and the handheld unit, failed. Water was flowing from both showers, neither at a satisfactory flow. My wife called Grohe that morning to request a replacement part. The Grohe representative felt the problem sounded like a failed pin that is the main component in the diverter. He assured her the part will be sent immediately and we will have it within two days time. Just what I would expect from a reputable company.

10 days later and the part never arrived.

We reached out to Grohe 5 days ago to get an update on the part. No one was able to give us the information as the person my wife spoke with, Rick, was not around. My wife left him a message and also followed up with an email. No response and no part arrived to this day. This is now becoming very disappointing: my shower is disabled and the brand I put my faith in, appears to not care.

Where consumers finally enjoy some relief is in access to social media and I intend and already started spreading the word about my situation and how others should react. This is also why I am writing this post – you, strangers and friends, will hopefully now know that Grohe provides really crummy service experience (maybe they should read Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work to understand why this is a big deal). Grohe appears to be on Twitter, but instead of listening for real, it appears to be a social media PR campaign (it's viral, according to their website) to share the joys of showering. Well, I cannot shower, can I?

My wife will now call them a fourth time tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.In the meantime I reached out to the campaign's Twitter account for help and to vent.

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Consumer

Disconnecting Sirius Satellite Radio

I am done with my Sirius radio.
I love Howard Stern but after almost 15 years of listening, I feel I outgrew the show; I will miss the news, the interviews, but I am just satiated. With the $12.95/month service fee no longer including Internet listening privileges (limited only to original Sirius content – no sports, and only at 32kbps quality) – I am finally done. I was OK with reception that is 100% impossible indoors, but paying extra (even $3/month) for a service that is impossible to use indoors, is ludicrous to me. Even the commercial-free promise is half-true, especially on Howard’s Howard 100 channel.
I hope Sirius stays afloat because the promise is great and fewer commercials are great, but the inability to select channels a la carte for real (very limited channel groupings, like with the cable company) is just not convincing.
So now, I am heading into the 30th minute on hold with Sirius on the call to disconnect the service. It is impossible to do from the website, of course. And the voice-driven menu is far from working. I think I am fed up waiting and switch the dynamic and recommend others to join me. I am going to give them a one time use credit card number (like Bank of America’s ShopSafe) and have them looking for me. Disconnect me – I tried to ask you to do it nicely but apparently it is impossible…
Customer service at its worst.

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