Saturday, February 03, 2007
Replacement keyboard
Remember my last post on a famous hokkien mee stall at Kallang Airport? The one with utterly atrocious service and unable to stand by and guarantee that the quality of their product is acceptable. Let us now contrast that kind of lousy behaviour with the experience I had dealing with Microsoft when my Comfort Curve Keyboard spoilt again.
This time, only the z and spacebar keys stopped working, but that is irritating enough, especially as you can't exactly type without spacebar, and you can't undo without z, haha. I dug up the old email from my previous exchange with them, and told them about the problem. The initial response was made by the next working day and after looking into the matter, they agreed to exchange the keyboard without asking any questions.
Although they were unable to call me on my hp as I was having a tutorial at that time, they emailed me on the same day asking if another model is acceptable. They actually offered the Digital Media Pro Keyboard. Although it doesn't have the ergonomic curve, at least it has the keys in normal positions, and it has many other shortcut buttons around it.
Using the compare prices function on the MS hardware website, it seems like the replacement they offered is worth more than my original one. I had to call up the representative to confirm a delivery date, but once that was done they delivered the replacement to my house at no extra charge.
Now this is service. Microsoft provided a warranty. When their product was defective, they did not try to push the blame to my usage habits or something, but offered to replace it. Instead of requiring me to go to some warehouse, they delivered it. It's this kind of gesture that keeps customers loyal, and our local businesses will do well to learn from this.
Maybe if this keyboard spoils too, I can exchange it again for a better one, and eventually end up with some executive keyboard which costs a couple of hundred dollars. :P For those who don't think there's a chance, check out the guy who traded a red paper clip for a house. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/
Haha, anyway it's just wishful thinking, I'm not that greedy.
This time, only the z and spacebar keys stopped working, but that is irritating enough, especially as you can't exactly type without spacebar, and you can't undo without z, haha. I dug up the old email from my previous exchange with them, and told them about the problem. The initial response was made by the next working day and after looking into the matter, they agreed to exchange the keyboard without asking any questions.
Although they were unable to call me on my hp as I was having a tutorial at that time, they emailed me on the same day asking if another model is acceptable. They actually offered the Digital Media Pro Keyboard. Although it doesn't have the ergonomic curve, at least it has the keys in normal positions, and it has many other shortcut buttons around it.
Using the compare prices function on the MS hardware website, it seems like the replacement they offered is worth more than my original one. I had to call up the representative to confirm a delivery date, but once that was done they delivered the replacement to my house at no extra charge.
Now this is service. Microsoft provided a warranty. When their product was defective, they did not try to push the blame to my usage habits or something, but offered to replace it. Instead of requiring me to go to some warehouse, they delivered it. It's this kind of gesture that keeps customers loyal, and our local businesses will do well to learn from this.
Maybe if this keyboard spoils too, I can exchange it again for a better one, and eventually end up with some executive keyboard which costs a couple of hundred dollars. :P For those who don't think there's a chance, check out the guy who traded a red paper clip for a house. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/
Haha, anyway it's just wishful thinking, I'm not that greedy.
posted by cosine @ 4:35 PM 
