Skip navigation

Category Archives: UMBRAGE!!

On customer service

tl;dr?  Customer service seems to be a very rare thing these days, but these people still provide excellent customer service: PWR+, Quality Watch Repair.

I’ve been thinking about customer service lately.  Mostly, I’ve been thinking about how customer service is severely lacking these days.  Ok, so mostly I’ve been thinking about these examples of poor customer service (oh, and I suppose I should warn you about salty language should you not wish to brine your brain):

Ok, yes, these were brought to my attention only because I stalk some incredibly geeky yet popular people on the internets.  And yes, three of the examples involve one company and probably could be consolidated into one example.  And yes yes, I do believe that all of these issues were resolved in the end.  (I think all but the post on the Ocean Marketing PR disaster include links to new posts on the resolution.  You can google for Gabe’s resolution with Ocean.)  But still, wth?  This is how you treat people these days?  In particular, this is how to you treat customers these days?  In case you’ve forgotten, a customer is

A customer is someone a company depends upon to purchase their commodity or service.  If you depend upon someone for your financial survival, shouldn’t that logically lead you to conclude that you ought to treat that person fairly at the very least?  I realize that sometimes you’ll have the overbearing individual who tries to wheedle for more than what was agreed upon.  I understand that you may wish to discourage that one individual (politely!) in giving you repeat business.  I mean, you need to remain sane to run your business and dealing with such people probably will drive you insane.

But in the above examples, the customer wasn’t being overbearing.  They were normal customers.  They could have been you or me.  And they were treated terribly, TERRIBLY, by the other party and with no reasonable explanation.  I’m also pretty sure there was a resolution to these cases because the other party picked on some popular people.  If something like that had happened to me, I would probably just have to take it.  It’s messed up, I tell you.

So, that’s the background of the whole thing.  It’s what I expect now from customer service and I’m pleasantly surprised when I’m treated politely.  Politely!  Which really should be the baseline of how we treat anyone.  Isn’t that sad?  Why should I be pleasantly surprised when I’m treated like how one human being should treat another?  What happened to politeness and respect?

Now then, I said background, right?  That implies that there is a foreground.  Otherwise, you would just have…ground.  So here’s the foreground.  I recently had two different entities provide me with wonderful customer service.  Wonderful.  It was full of wonder.  These people really did go above and beyond.

First, PWR+.  I managed to lose Codename Roodee’s AC adapter a few months back.  Or at least, I found out I had lost it a few months back and I may have lost it a long time before that.  You might find that really weird, since Roodee is my runner.  You would think Roodee’s battery would have died and I would have realized that I couldn’t charge it back up.  But no.  Because Alienware has been purchased by Dell, they all use Dell AC adapters now.  There are Dell laptops everywhere.  I would normally just grab whichever one was handy and charge up Roodee’s battery with it.  That’s why I didn’t realize that his AC adapter was missing for so long.  I thought about buying another one from Dell, but after my recent dealings with them (oh yeah, here‘s another example of bad customer service, but this one isn’t of maliciousness but one of general cluelessness) I didn’t really want to do that.  I found PWR+ makes cheaper AC adapters AND with smaller footprints!  So I purchased one through Amazon and then it broke two months later.  Electronic components fail.  This is something I know very well.  If a component fails because of a defect, normally it’s within the first few times of using it.  In this case, it was two months of irregular usage before the defective component died (it was working fine up to that point).  The rep for PWR+ was very polite and helpful, even when I couldn’t immediately find my Amazon order ID, which is apparently the only way they can look up orders fulfilled through Amazon.  He was uncommonly patient while waiting for me to find the order ID and issued me an RMA number without any hassle.  I got a new adapter shipped out to me the same day they received my defective one.  It was a very pleasant experience over all.

And second, Quality Watch Repair (QWR).  I have been sending my watch (a ’98 ladies Seiko kinetic) to QWR for several years now.  Originally, it was because I couldn’t find watch repair places in my area that were willing to take a ladies kinetic (they’re supposedly very hard to work with because it’s a lot of mechanics packed into a very small space).  Well, after the Seiko repair factory closed down in LA, there wasn’t much else I could do besides send it out for repair.  I found QWR through a quick search online and after a brief vetting, it seemed promising.  So, I mentally prepared myself for the possibility of never seeing my watch again and sent it off (to Oregon).  You don’t always know what you’re getting with online merchants.  But, my watch came back in wonderful condition…each and every time I’ve sent it off.  Yes, I’ve sent my watch (and my dad’s and sister’s watches) to QWR several times.  Not because QWR hasn’t done an excellent job of repairing our watches, but because even after I’ve found places that were willing to take older Seiko kinetics, I’ve decided that dealing with QWR is more than worth the extra step of mailing them the watch (and waiting for it to be mailed back).  The people behind QWR are pleasant, patient, fair, and do quality work.  They readily communicate the status of your repair and suggestions on what needs to be done.  They even have a “quibble-free one year guarantee.”  The last time I sent my watch back, they deemed that it the issue was a warranty item and refunded me my shipping fees and diagnostic fee.  That really surprised me.  It would have been totally fair for QWR to keep my diagnostic fee and there was no reason for them to also pay for my shipping fees, but they did.  It really was a quibble-free guarantee.

And…those were my thoughts on customer service.  Apparently it still exists.  Sometimes it exists in abundance.  We should support those businesses that supply customer service in abundance.  And we should probably avoid those business in which there is a dearth of customer service.  That’ll learn them.

Mwah keess, mwah keess, mwah keess

Um…if you don’t know where my title comes from, you need to watch more cartoons.

Anyway, recently a friend and I were talking about perfumes and how some people wear waaaay too much of it.  Now normally, I wouldn’t say anything about other people’s personal beauty routines.  Mostly because I don’t care.  I mean, I may compliment you (btw, I’m using a generic “you” and not talking about you specifically) if you’re looking especially nice that day, but really I just don’t care.  It’s not really that important to me how you look…or even how I look.

But the thing with perfumes and colonges and eau de toilettes (eaux de toilette? eaux des toilettes?) and even strongly scented lotions is that I can’t help but notice them.  They intrude upon me unlike how your hair looks or how your makeup is done or how fashionable your clothing is.  If you want to cake on makeup, that’s your choice.  It doesn’t really affect me at all.  I mean if you choose to put on makeup and do your hair so that you look like this:

This is outside societal norms girl.

It’s fine.  It’s your decision to do so.  I may be momentarily startled by your appearance since it’s out of the societal norm for “beauty” but beauty is in the eye of the beholder right?  And if that’s the way you choose to look, well fine.  If you’re happy with the way you look, that’s great.  And you don’t have to (nor should you) conform to my tastes and standards of how people should look.

But with scents, it doesn’t work like this even if you so desperately want it to.  I mention this because I’ve heard many huffy arguments about how it’s a free country and that the scent-wearer should be able to smell however he or she wants.  Yes, I agree with that…to a degree.  You should have the right to smell like you want.  But at the same time, I might have to exist in the same place as you, the scent-wearer.  Shouldn’t I be allowed to breathe unscented air?  Especially since as an asthmatic, a lot of perfumes and colognes and ESPECIALLY heavily scented lotions trigger asthma attacks.  I really would like to have a chance to breathe without wheezing and hacking and choking.

So perhaps you think you present yourself like this with your immaculate hair and makeup and wardrobe and scent:

This is generic mysterious/elegant lady.

And maybe you do…to yourself.  But perhaps fragrance is in the nose of the beholder?  Because more often than not, I see/smell you more like this:

Yes. Full on stink lines.

Or maybe even like this:

Ok, ok.  The flies are a bit much.  I don’t think you stink to the point where you attract monstrous, anatomically incorrect flies (unless you have poor personal hygiene, but that’s a different topic).  But a lot of perfumes are definitely cloying and illicit such reactions like wheezing and coughing and hacking and choking.  And no, I’m not doing it to be rude.  I don’t even do that to smokers.  I’m doing it because your overwhelming scent is triggering an asthma attack.

Anyway, the point is…sometimes the scent-wearer reeks.  And while that may seem really mean to say, please keep in consideration that scent invades another person’s space and being.  It lingers in the air.  It doesn’t just disappear.  It’s not like makeup at all.  With makeup, it’s just a bunch of photons resolving on your retinas and your brain interpreting the signals as something visual.  Nothing of your makeup actually interacts with me.  With scent, molecules of it are actually entering into my nostrils and latching onto receptors.  If you wear a lot of perfume, there are a lot of molecules around you and more of them end up in my nose.  You’re constantly shedding these molecules.  They’re still around when you leave.  Scent is nothing like makeup.

So, you should be allowed to wear a scent if you choose.  But I think you should also take into the consideration of those around you especially if scent is in the hose of the beholder.  Just please…don’t dump half a bottle on yourself.  If you want to wear a scent, maybe try for this:

Instead of this:

Thanks.