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Missing Samsung screws, poor customer service and fake blogs (with CNBC’s Jane Wells)

I enjoy Jane Wells’ blog and live reports on CNBC. 


This week she looks at poor customer service (sorry, she labels it “hellish “). A friend of Jane’s Andy signed up with satellite internet service provider WildBlue.net…


“Barnett signed up in May of 2006, and the equipment was guaranteed for a year. Eleven months in, it died. Thus began one of the most mind-numbing attempts to get repairs that I have ever heard. He’s made repeated calls to the company only to learn that the piece of equipment he needs is no longer in stock. A company rep told him over the phone they’re completely out.



“Yet they continue to charge him for monthly service THAT HE NO LONGER HAS. And, according to Barnett, during this time WildBlue sales reps continued to tell prospective customers they could get service within a few weeks, even though the company allegedly didn’t have the necessary equipment.”


That’s amazing. Many consumer companies I have worked with throughout my career prescribed to the notion to keep spare parts on hand (or reasonable replacements and alternatives) available to customers for five to seven years. This means that, as a customer, you should be able to find replacement parts long after the latest gizmo has gone the way of the dodo. I found this to be true with major firms such as Canon, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic and Samsung.


Wait a sec… hold that thought on Samsung for a moment.


Let me be clear on one thing: in order to get good customer service, you also have to be able to get through to the company. Lately, I had a heck of a time reaching Samsung, to obtain a replacement part for a monitor. I like their LCD monitors, having several at home (from an old SyncMaster 770 TFT to the latest 19″ widescreens). Turns out that a mounting screw (connecting the base to the bottom mount of the monitor) was too short to make the connection. No problem, I thought, a quick call to their customer service centre should solve that problem.


Not so fast.


Several calls to their “customer care” 800 number resulted in being disconnected while I waited on hold. And when I dialed their offices on both coasts (on my dime), I left messages and never received a response. And my emails sent to the company were never answered.


Sheesh.


Let’s just say that due to the lack of support, I resorted to my own devices. I hopped in the car and shot over to Lowe’s hardware, where I met a retired contractor now working in hardware customer service. In less than a minute, he found the replacement part (a metric screw, M4 .70 x 16) that solved my problem. I’ll let you know if I ever hear back from a live person in Samsung’s monitor division.


Thank you, Lowe’s.


Also this week, Jane takes a look at all of the fake blogs popping up (such as fake Steve Jobs)…



“With all the talk about the “Fake Steve Jobs” at www.fakesteve.blogspot.com, (including on this blog), followed by the “Fake Gene Munster,” the Piper Jaffray analyst who covers Apple, at www.fakegene.blogspot.com (Jim Goldman alerted us to this one yesterday), it seems to me all the attention goes to the fakes.”



Jane also spend time last week reporting on LinkedIn… which I’ve found is a great way to reconnect and stay connected with friends and close business associates.


On CNBC, I also read Jim Goldman’s blog – I enjoy his reporting style, watching him originally reporting on Bay Area news channels.


 


Tags: Samsung, Jane Wells, customer support

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Connecting an HP scanner with Windows Vista is much easier than with Windows XP

This evening I came home and decided to go through the chore of attaching my old scanners and printers to my family Windows Vista machine. I was ready to bid adieu to the family for the rest of the evening and resolve myself to the home office until dark.


A previous quick trip to the HP web site noted that drivers were available for my MFP at the office, an Officejet 6110, and I found in place the old somewhat long-winded instructions (download and install drivers, attaching the USB cable at a particular time, but not while the peripheral is on, and after the USB cable is connected to the PC…), a very simple instruction: 



“The driver solution for this product is included in your Windows Vista operating system and is already on your computer. There is no need to download anything. Follow the steps below to quickly and easily get your product working with Windows Vista.”

Huh? I told the kids to head on outside with our friend’s dog without me… it seems this is a simple process…

Installing the printer driver

  • Verify that the printer is turned on.


  • Connect the Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable to the printer and to the computer.


  • A Your devices are ready to use window might display on the screen. If the window displays and does not close automatically, close the window.


  • Print a test page to verify that the printer is working correctly.





      • And it was just that simple, complete in a matter of a few minutes. Installing the drivers for my laser printer at home was almost as easy (but Brother’s drivers weren’t as easily discovered by Vista as HP product drivers). 


      HP driver installation in Vista


      Surely, the installation procedure for the Scanjet 4670 document scanner would be more convoluted than that… and I’d booked the time off to handle investigating the hardware configuration, rolling back drivers and setting some arcane switches only accessible via the command line. You get the picture.


      But throwing caution to the wind and walking the tightrope without a net (so to speak), I went ahead and connected the scanner directly to the USB port and what do you know…


      It worked. All I did was plug in a cable and it worked. In Windows XP, it took the better part of 15 or 20 minutes when I first brought home the scanner… but now, with Windows Vista, I was scanning in less than five minutes. Once again, HP jumped through hoops for me as their customer.


      There is a disclaimer on the HP site…



      “This is the minimum driver required for basic WIA functionality. This driver enables scanning with the Windows Photo Gallery on Windows Vista or the Scanner and Camera Wizard on Windows XP. Scanning can also be done with a variety of 3rd party scanner enabled applications.


      “You might find that some features are no longer available when using this basic driver. We are sorry to inform you that a full feature driver for Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition will not be available for your HP product in the future. You can upgrade to an HP product that is fully compatible with Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition if additional features are necessary.”


      Well, I haven’t run into any major issue or limitation. So far so good, the scanner works like a charm.


      Kudos to HP and the Windows Vista team. Following the investment of a few minutes after dinner, all’s well that ends well.


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      Dell’s direct2dell blog is a year old, and they’ve learned a lot about their customers

      Dell’s direct2dell blog is a year old, and the blog’s keeper, Lionel Menchaca, has posted his insight and comments on the last year in the blogosphere…



      “While we’ve made progress, I’m not saying everything is where we want it to be. We stumbled out of the gate. Some things went well, others didn’t. We arranged an interview between a blogger and a Dell VP. Through my work on the blog, I’ve had the good fortune to meet bloggers like Virginia Miracle, Jeff Jarvis, Tony Hung, Robert Scoble, John Jantsch, Jeremiah Owyang (who’s someone I continue to learn a lot from). All in all, I think Mack Collier provided a pretty fair assessment of where we are right now.”  


      IMHO, it is refreshing to see that Dell’s team on the blog has acknowledged the challenges of maintaining a corporate blog, and took th etime to outline what they learned over the last year:



      • there is power in the voice of customers and their feedback

      • it’s not a good idea to ignore tough issues that come up from customers

      • blogging can be tough and requires patience, balance and responsiveness. Essentially, it’s important to listen and respond to your customers. Otherwise, as Lionel said, “things get out of whack really quickly.”

      • It takes time to build your blog and it helps to have “a thick skin”


      • Consider launching your blog when there are issues. Lionel notes that when they kicked off the blog, they saw 50% of the comments they received were negative, and now a year later they’ve seen that number decrease to under 25% negative.


      As many employees with blogs on MSDN and Technet have found, once you open a line of communication up to your customers and partners, they expect that you will respond. I agree that it’ sdifficult to scale customer support through a blog format, and our product groups and customer service teams are always looking at new ways to leverage broad commuications with the people in the various communities.


      I’ve heard stories from teams in several groups (including Windows, Exchange and Windows Mobile) how they have made great connections with customers initially through their blog; sometimes, employees will leave a post on a customer’s blog (hey, we read as well as write) to get more information on something someone posts about a Microsoft product.


      And with programmes like the ones we run through Microsoft Connect we have a chance to get feedack from customers in our managed beta programmes. As of this post, various prouct teams have fielded 247,505 bugs submitted, received 35,638 suggestions from the more than 1,028,332 Connect members to date. Systems and sites like Connect help us to listen to our customers needs, provide valuable trials and respond. Drawing on concepts such as the one that Dell trialed through their IdeaStorm site, the community already active on Connect could provide their own feedback and ideas for Microsoft to act on.


      But if you do it, you have to be prepared to respond to and potentially act on the ideas submitted.



      “A big reason why I’m still blogging away a year later is because lots of people at Dell are committed to taking feedback from customers and doing something with it. The action piece is a critical.”


      Here here.

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      Wireless Internet connections using the AT&T Cingular 8525 as a modem

      OK, here we are on a lovely, sunny afternoon at the coast, after a very busy afternoon, and my wife asks if she can use the Internet on our laptop. Well, no broadband connection at our friend’s house, and scanning the available networks, I found that no one locally here at the beach has an open, always on wireless connections to the ‘net. Unless you count the Cyber Cafe with a low-strength WiFi connection for just (gasp) $12 an hour.


      No problem: fire up the mobile phone as a USB modem, connecting to the wireless Internet.


      Now, it’s not as straightforward as simply plugging a phone to the PC via a USB cable or discovery via BlueTooth, but not too difficult as you just have to install a driver and follow some simple instructions. And if you have an Internet connection on your phone, you can download the driver files and transfer them to your PC via the sync cable.


      (Modem… a scary concept. I had someone ask me recently at the office if they really needed a modem installed on their new PC, and after a quick thought I answered “no, save the slot.” I think the last time I used a modem was four years ago… maybe five. I remember using 300 baud modems from home with dial telephone handset to initiate the connection. Now that’s scary.)


      But with a mobile phone, you may have available (depending on your wireless plan) a digital modem connection at the ready. In our case, we have the Cingular 8525 with the AT&T all-you-can-eat wireless Internet plan for one low price. Thanks to Pocket PC Central, there is a quick tutorial with links to use the Cingular 8525 as a USB modem with your Windows computer



      1. Install the right driver before connecting your phone to your PC withthe USB cable. You’ll install either the Cingular / AT&T 8525 Modem Driver (Windows XP) or Cingular / AT&T 8525 Modem Driver (Windows Vista). 

      2. Enable Wireless Modem Mode on your phone, by selecting “Programs” from the Start Menu, and then clicking on “Wireless Modem.”

      3. Connect the phone to your PC as a modem

      4. Configure the Modem: on Windows XP, through the “Network Connections” in the Control Panel, or “Phone and Modem Options” in Vista. In order to “dial” the modem and access the network, you use the a phone number *99# (on the Cingular service).

      5. On the Cingular/AT&T network, you use the username WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM and password: CINGULAR1 (note the caps).

      As PPC notes… “The speed of your connection to the Internet with the Cingular 8525 will vary depending on your signal strength, the type of network Cingular Wireless has in your area, etc. You’ll also need a data plan from Cingular in order to use the handset as a dial-up modem when connecting to the Cingular (now AT&T) wireless data network. If you want to dial into another ISP, you can follow the same method shown above, but when the time comes to enter the connection name, username, password, etc., enter the settings provided by your ISP.  


      Otherwise, fairly straight forward. A note to the VIsta time (hint hint): it would be nice if Windows Vista included a reference to using a PocketPC or Smartphone as a wireless modem in the online help.


      Have a nice weekend.

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      Your questions: What are the best notebook PCs for under $1,000?

      A quick note between meetings, to answer Cathi’s question…

      “What are the best notebook PCs for under $1,000?”

      Leave it to PC Magazine to rank the top laptops under $1,000, ranging from the Acer Aspire 9300 to models from Dell, Gateway, HP and Lenovo.

      The top-ranked were the HP Pavilion dv2500t (#1) and Dell XPS M1210 (#2).

      Unfortunately, the HP Pavilion HDX9000 listed in the online article here exceeds the $1,000 ceiling by just a bit. 😉

      Added 062107: Check out this new MSN Shopping guide on “Good, Better and Best Laptops”

      “Lighter, slimmer and with more muscle than ever, the laptop has become an essential tool for students, frequent flyers, commuters and people who just like to save space. We’ll help you figure out which type best suits your needs.
      See all computers and software “

      … with everything from the sub $500 Acer Aspire 3050-1733 to the mid-range (just under $900) Dell Inspiron E1505, and  around $1,000 Dell Inspiron E1705 and Toshiba Tecra M6-EZ6612… or the HP Pavilion dv9000t and Lenovo ThinkPad X60 for under $2K.