A few weeks ago my laptop battery died and had a second chance to check the quality of the BenQ customer service. A few weeks after I bought the laptop (Joybook 6000) in the fall of 2005 the hard disk failed. The service I got then was quite well about which I reported earlier.
Luckily the laptop was still under the 2 year warranty. So I contacted the paid service desk (EUR 0.50 per minute!) and after exchanging a few details, I was provided the RMA number and the return address. Then the waiting started.
After a week or two I got a bit curious about the replacement. Did my battery ever arrive at the service centre? Was the battery not in stock? Although my contact details were clearly in the service providers database (HECC), I heard nothing. So I contacted them, first by telephone (“you will be contacted about the status”) and later by email, because nobody actually contacted me. However still no word from HECC.
So, I started looking for a way out of this situation, not wanting to spend more bucks on the paid telephone. And then, via Google, I found the contact details of the BenQ General Customer Service in the Netherlands, located in their head office in Son (this info is not visible on the main BenQ website!), and contacted them.
That helped a lot. After listening to my report on the bad experience with their outsourcing partner, the service representative quickly took over the case and within a week I had a brand new battery in my laptop.
Although frustrated by the initial customer service and the amount of time spend, sometimes these things happen and I am happy with the final result. I hope BenQ and HECC has learned from this.
Technorati tag(s): BenQ, Laptop, Customer service, HECC
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posted Jan 31, 11:33 PM on Jan 31, 2007 |
category: Laptop
/ Customer experience
Upfront warning: this is not another story about bad customer service! So far the treatment has been quite well!
A few months ago I bought myself a brand new laptop, in addition to the normal PC. The general idea is to use it in the train (commuting 2 hours per day!) for all kinds of stuff, including writing blog posts. Of course, I always fancied having a laptop just for fun as well, doing tricky software tests and installations away from the main PC, while being really mobile and able to benefit from my wireless network at home and elsewhere. In fact the laptop already also proved quite valuable in case both my wife and I want to do PC things (or even surf the Internet) at the same time.
The laptop in question is a Benq Joybook 6000 D16. It’s a very nice looking stylish model, weighting not more than 1.8 kg with a small but perfectly viewable 12,1 inch screen (WXGA).
Well, the Benq only worked for a week, then it would not start up anymore! Whatever I tried, nothing helped. Boy, was I happy with the 2 years pick-up and return service included with the sale.
So I called customer support, which was not difficult at all. They kindly advised me to do a full restore. Unfortunately that did not help, so I got an RMA number. A delivery service came collecting the laptop (carefully packaged) at work and after exactly one week I got a call to ask where the delivery of the fixed laptop could take place.
Well it was fixed all right and within one week time. In my opinion, the service was quite up to standard.
Unfortunately, a couple of weeks later I found out that the headphone jack was not working properly, producing a weird background noise that is quite annoying. So I called customer support again and got a few tips to try first, before sending the laptop in for repair again. Well, although I understand that customer support acts as gatekeeper, for me it was already clear that I was dealing with a mechanical defect needing a “real” repair.
So that’s the current situation. I have not send in the laptop yet, as I got attached to it too much, but I really need to get it fixed to start enjoying my Battlestar Galactica DVD sets in the train.
I bit of bad luck with this laptop, but that can happen, I guess.
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| posted Jan 14, 12:04 AM on Jan 14, 2006 |
category: Laptop
