Dealing with technical support lines or customer services often can be a frickle thing, and when my 10 month old Samsung ML-2010 printer at work decided to start making weird noises, I was close to order a new printer. Colleagues convinced me to go through the tech support hassle and use my warranty rights.
Armed with everything I might eventually need (Model number, serial number, purchase date, invoice number and .pdf invoice), I rang 0870-SAMSUNG, although the printer was purchased at Pixmania, I first was greeted by a loudly laughing woman. Laughing, not greeting. No niceties. When after some seconds I hesitantly said ‘Hello?!‘, I knew from her reply I had dialed the correct number. Yes, I was connected to the Samsung Help Desk. Phew.
Optimist/Pessimist/Cynic I am, I had only given myself 5-8 minutes to sort this out or I would have ordered a new printer. I am in the first month of my new IT budget and honestly am too lazy to walk to the network printer. Network printing, a former pet-peeve of mine. My desk though… has its own printer.
I was really surprised when within less than two minutes I had received both a reference number and the promise that a technical agent would call me in the next two hours. Not once was I asked where or when I did purchase that printer, nor did I have to go into detail about my problem.
That was easy. Let the wait begin now.
But there was no wait. Only few minutes later a Samsung Tech Agent called me and asked me to describe the problem. Not knowing how a printer is engineered, this proved to be a much more difficult problem than expected. What can be that hard about explaining that a printer doesn’t grab the paper anymore, all while making loud, protesting noises, before throwing a ‘Online error’ at you? The agent luckily was whether a bad car driver or had several friends who couldn’t handle the gearbox of a car properly, because the analogy ‘If you can’t find’em, grind’em‘, immediately explained what my problem was.
Within the next 2-3 days Samsung UK will drop off a new unit for me. No need to send mine in, wait for weeks and pay shipping costs.
That’s what I call Customer Service. Service with a capital S. Especially considering the fact that the printer only cost GBP 47.99 (less than $100).
Well done Samsung.
Update 04.15.2008: The new (refurb?) unit arrived today1. Hats off, Samsung Customer Care. :-)
- Still no one bothered asking for an invoice/proof of purchase. Also starting today another 12 months of warranty on that same below $100 printer kicks in. :D [↩]
