Does your telco provide you with a service phone?
April 21, 2008 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Cell phone, Services
My BlackBerry got bust. The middle “Pearl” stopped becoming sensitive enough to scroll through anything. So the SOP was to send it back to the telco via the service center and it will be shipped to Canada. Here’s a story for you … I had always been in touch with “Grace” one of the account managers for SMART and though this is a telco here in the Philippines it is still a good example of excellent service.
So the procedure as I had it in my head would be to hop on over to the service center and leave the unit there for her to pick up and facilitate. I drove about 20 minutes to the mall where the center was located and called her when I was outside the store for her to verify that she would indeed grab the unit later that afternoon. She picks up and asks me if i wanted a service phone (!). Wow, I thought. The initial misgivings of shipping the ‘Berry off to Canada for weeks of repair were set to rest. At least they would replace it with a “rent a phone” for the time being.
I told her I was right outside the store and with this she goes, “Sir! Don’t leave it there. If you do that, that particular service center doesn’t have stock for service units, I should know. Let me have someone fetch it from your house and send a replacement because I can course the service units through my channels, which is much easier.”
Funny. I didn’t feel a bit of frustration driving 20 minutes to the mall to get the darn thing fixed. Although it would have really helped if she told me that someone could have just passed by instead. But still. Damn excellent service. One of my learnings is that customer service centers, at least where I’m from have a limited supply of service units that are actually given out to post paid subscribers. Thus, If you can’t find a service center that can replace your phone for the time being, the best solution would be to move to another center that has stocks.
it helps that you already now someone from the inside and you’re on an expensive post-paid plan. others in a similar situation who are also post-paid subscribers, but are on a low-medium costing plan wouldn’t get the same offer as you did.
well knowing someone from the inside isn’t that hard to get. her job was really to facilitate things like these. i like making friends with the front lines too.
do you?