Cell Phone - The Rest of the Story

The sign of a good business person is the manner in which they clean up the oops of their business life.

This is a continuation of my cell phone story from Thursday.

I purchased the phone from Bill Dohrmann, the owner of CellPro Wireless. His company is a BNI member and I like to support BNI as much as I can.

I chatted with Bill on Friday to share my disappointment with both trying to set up the phone and also the features of the phone.

I have to give Bill credit. He let me talk. He listened, even when I didn't fit into his day.

He asked what I wanted him to do for me and then proposed a solution.

In the end he suggested I bring the phone back to replace it with one that would suit me better. Since Bill had to be at an out of town conference this weekend, he told me to meet with his employee, Joe Walker.

Joe is a pro. He really knows the business. He agrees that Sprint's customer service is for SH*T. (I hope this doesn't get him in trouble.) He asked questions that helped him to help me.

My intention before I arrived at the store was to upgrade to the next higher model of Blackberry, mistakenly thinking it had a camera. It does not.

In the end, believe it or not, I kept the original new phone, which I had every intention of giving back. Joe told me the reasons why it was best for me, although he proposed a second model (not a Blackberry) that had a camera, but not the direct email system that Blackberry uses.

With all that in mind, I was still going to upgrade to next higher Blackberry model and pay extra money. But Joe explained that while it physically looked different (a little more streamlined) it was basically the same phone. Joe could have gotten a few more dollars, but he knew the value of serving the customer. (Sprint, you should hire Joe to do customer service training for you.)

Joe got the right plan in place for me, as I sat there. What I had tried to do for 2 hours and 10 minutes the other night, did not include email service, even though I kept asking about it many times during that marathon session. The only thing he was not able to do was to actually set up my email, because I couldn't remember my password without looking it up.

So as I said, the mark of a good business person, is the way they handle challenges that occur with customers.

Bill, you are smart to have Joe on your side, because I felt like he was on my side this morning, too.

Frustrated

Report from the hinderland!

I have been using my new hearing aides for about two weeks now and on a scale of 1 - 10, they are an 8.5. There are still situations where I don't hear as well as I would like, but the audiologist told me to keep track of the situations and when I see her for my check-up she would be able to program for those situations.

One challenge I have had is using my cell phone in the car, which I have always done hands-free in the past by using an ear bud. Of course, that won't work now. Evidently, there is Bluetooth equipment that will transmit the phone directly to my hearing aides. NEAT!

My phone, a Blackberry, needed to be replaced anyway but now the motivation was there to replace it because it is not Bluetooth-enabled. My new phone was shipped to me today. I have now spent almost 2 hours on the phone trying to activate my phone. I have been put on hold numerous times, and was cut off once. During the hold time, this pleasant recording warmly told me how easy it is to pay bills "in a flash." Just hang up and start again.

I am not impressed with Sprint's customer service, but somehow I don't think they care. I went to a brick and mortar store to purchase my phone, only to be told it would be shipped to me and that it's easy to get it up and running.

WRONG.

I'm giving them ten more minutes, whoops, she just came back on and told me to punch in some numbers and then asked if I have a Samsung phone, when I have been telling her that it is a Blackberry from the start of this call.

WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SO HARD?????????????

Okay, the phone is working, but even though I asked the lady if email would start too, and she said, "yes," that doesn't seem to be the truth.

Okay, thanks for reading. I just had to get this off my chest.

PS Total time, 2 hours, 10 minutes

Tree Loss

Yesterday I went to a local store to buy a gift. The person I was buying it for had registered at that store, so I visited the registry online before I left the house. I knew exactly what I wanted to buy so I just jotted myself a sticky note to take with me. No need to print the whole registry, right?

WRONG.

Within a few short minutes, I was in the check-out line. The lady at the register asked if this was a registry item. I said, "Yes."

She then asked for my phone number. I mistakenly gave her my zip code -- but I got that figured out! As she was keying it in to her machine, I thought to myself, "Now I wonder how that gets me connected to the registry?" After completing that task, she turned back and said, "No registry?" Confused, I replied that yes it was a registry item as I had already told her. She said, "Well, where is your registry?"

HUH?

Seems like, I had to have the paper copy in order for her to complete the transaction so that this purchase would be noted in the ELECTRONIC registry that it had been bought.

I had to go over to the registry desk, wait my turn, and then wait some more while their S-L-O-W printer spit out the six or seven sheets of paper. Then, and only then, could the clerk complete the transaction.

The kicker at the end was the final question. She asked, "Would you like the copy of the registry?" Now, I've just bought stuff from this registry. And I can view it online. Why in the world would I need a paper copy? Multiply this transaction times all the people who file through that store and all the BabiesRUs stores nationwide.

Every day.


I'm surprised that there are even any Redwoods left.

So in thinking back, I could have taken the BIG GAMBLE. I could have NOT had the gift keyed into the registry and then taken the chance of it being duplicated by some other gift-giver. Oh horrors! And the gift would have to be returned. Just like the old days.

Okay, I'll climb down off the soapbox now before I get a nosebleed.

What gets your underwear in a knot?