Words on Customer Service
Those of you who care may recall my periodic attempts to get my Sony Network Walkman to work under Linux. And the fact that I had failed to get it to work. Well, I was (and still am) happy with the Sony product as far as just using it as a radio/music player goes. But I became very frustrated by having to switch to Windows just to put music on it. So I decided to buy an iPod. Because they are known to work under Linux.
I very rarely buy electrical/computer equipment in bricks and mortar stores any more, unless I’m in a real rush or impulse buying and this was no exception. I use ebuyer for my purchases, after usually scouting around the net to compare prices. And this was no exception. I find the site very easy to navigate and beyond getting there newsletter sent out regularly, they tend not to bother you.
As usual, I knew exactly what I wanted to buy and what I wanted to do with it. I wanted an iPod and I wanted the FM radio add on. And that’s it. The 2Gb iPod Nano (Black) is a reasonable price there, as is the FM Radio and Remote. Ok, enough of that. The point of this was not to provide an ad for ebuyer or for the iPod. I wanted to talk about customer expectations and service.
Having used ebuyer in the past, I knew that they deliver quickly and with no fuss. I put in my order at about 15:30 yesterday (Tuesday 30 May) and received confirmation of the order about 10 minutes later. I requested next day delivery and fully expected this to be tomorrow (Thursday). However, ebuyer picked, packed and shipped my order that same day. I have just received the iPod (about 15 minutes ago) and it’s plugged into my laptop and charging up. This is what customer service is all about: make a promise and stick to it. It’s very easy to do but too often doesn’t happen.
So, I am now a happy camper - my order has arrived and I don’t need to worry about Sony’s support (or lack of it) for Linux. I will not be recommending the Walkman until Sony sort out their Open Source support and will instead recommend Apple. I would imagine that Sony don’t care (they have my money already and other people will buy their products) but I do and have done something about it.
Dominic
:
Heh. Ebuyer never deliver anything to me: They leave me “While you were out” notes and I have to go collect the poxy things :)
But hey, that’s better than the service I get from FedEx ;)
[Reply]
Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 15:15 CDThari
:
Here we’re still in the brick and mortar era, Ray :P
[Reply]
Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 16:00 CDTRay
:
And I feel for you Hari ;)
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Monday, 5 June 2006, 20:22 CDTJ_K9
:
Oooh.. The black iPod nano! Very nice. And no more of the Walkman saga…
Keep us updated on what happens! :D
I’ve never bought anything from eBuyer, as I heard that their customer
service was rubbish.. I bought all my PC’s parts from Overclockers, and they
all arrived promptly. Plus, I emailed OcUK three or four times about my
order, to request a VAT form, etc.. and they replied very quickly. I now
have a very nice computer at home (although I DID encounter a few problems
while building it :P), and I managed to get the VAT back thanks to their
good customer service. Dabs are pretty good too. :)
On another note.. How come Hari’s OS doesn’t show up? :P
[Reply]
Monday, 5 June 2006, 20:48 CDTRay
:
I can honestly say that I have never had any issues with eBuyer. Bearing in mind how late I ordered my iPod and bits, the delivery was enormously speedy. Helen, my partner, ordered a monitor and 1gb of memory from them and they should arrive tomorrow or the day after. It may be that they have fixed any customer service issues they used to have….
Gtkpod and libgpod are great pieces of software and make adding and removing music very easy - just need itunes porting over and all problems
will be solved!
Hari is using Beos or one of the derivatives - I think that the plugin doesn’t recognise the OS. I’m considering installing DesktopBSD or
FreeBSD or something. Should tide me over until Slack 11 comes out :)
[Reply]
Monday, 5 June 2006, 20:49 CDTray
:
The memory arrived today. This should mean that the 19″ monitor will arrive tomorrow. Again, ebuyer made a promise and kept to it - that’s customer service!
[Reply]
Tuesday, 6 June 2006, 11:51 CDTSt.Jimmy
:
They have brick and mortar stores now? Down in alabama, the closest one is miles away.
[Reply]
Friday, 23 June 2006, 06:16 CDTRay
:
You Americans with yer new fangled internetting :)
[Reply]
Friday, 23 June 2006, 19:04 CDTSt.Jimmy
:
You British with yer fancy walkin’n drivin :)
[Reply]
Friday, 23 June 2006, 21:25 CDTkevin from cheap mp3 players sale
:
One more advantage to apple ipods is they now have sites that buy them when they are broke. You can sell an old ipod or phone and get some money instead of throwing them out now.
[Reply]
Saturday, 6 September 2008, 21:51 CDTRay
:
You learn something new every day!
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Saturday, 6 September 2008, 22:22 CDTRingtones
:
hehe LOL!
[Reply]
Sunday, 7 September 2008, 03:52 CDTsam from kwizz shopping
:
This i agree i get notes all the time:)
[Reply]
Tuesday, 30 December 2008, 10:34 CST