Earning my trust

I've had a pleasant day of interactions with some of my favorite businesses. Just as a bad experience with a business can temporarily make you a raving misanthrope, dealing with people you trust and who treat you right fills the world with rainbows and your heart with love toward your fellow man.

Since 2001, when we bought our Subaru Outback, we've been patronizing Skip's Foreign Car Repair here in Conway. A good, honest mechanic is worth his weight in gold, and there are hundreds of us locally who are praying Skip never retires. He's quick, communicative, and tells it like it is. I had planned to take the Subaru to him next week to get an oil change and some service I knew was about to be needed -- like a new timing belt -- before we drive it to Tennessee in six weeks or so. Today I walked out to the garage and found that it had a flat tire. Well, no problem -- I'd just have it towed to Skip's and get that started a little early.

I asked Skip to check to see if we needed a whole new set of tires, and within the hour he called me back to say only the damaged one needed replacing. Off I went to tirerack.com, where I bought the car's last set of tires. Looked up my previous order so I could match the tires exactly, placed the order to drop-ship to Skip's, and the tire was on its way before the end of the day. There's another business whose wealth of information, professionalism, and empowerment of the customer gives me a wonderful experience and a wonderful feeling, every time.

And speaking of online businesses, let me conclude this post with a round of applause for MyService.com. We don't have an Apple authorized service provider in our town -- the closest one is Little Rock, and the closest Apple Store is Memphis. So when I need repairs on my computers that AppleCare doesn't cover, I get online and place an order with MyService. They'll send me a prepaid shipping box, do a complete free diagnostic, contact me frequently with information and ask my permission before doing any work, and ship it back promptly. What I like best about MyService is the reliable communication. The same person calls or emails to keep me abreast of everything I need to know about my order. I always feel secure that I know where my computer is, what's being done to it, and what I can expect next.

Trust is an essential component to a healthy mental life. I feel so fortunate being able to do business regularly with people I trust. And I'm happy to sing their praises to friends local and readers everywhere.

Camera obscura

New post at Toxophily: sky-blue socks!

This morning I had my trusty Canon Powershot S400 in my purse, and I took it out when I got to work and turned it on. This is what I saw on the screen:



Or something like that anyway, only pinker and blobbier. Well, nuts. I love this camera, purchased in March 2004. I guess you can't expect these gadgets to last forever. Let me just check Google to see if there's any hope of repair ...

Hey, FixYa.com has a post from somebody with a pink streaky display, and the response says that it's a CCD failure (the imaging chip inside the camera), and that Canon has a service bulletin promising a fix whether in or out of warranty. Let me just call that 800 number. Computer answers, I navigate to the repair area and tell them my product. The computer transfers me to "our Virginia call center" (a pointed jab at overseas outsourcing), and then I'm told that "all our representatives are busy." Par for the course.

But wait! The computer is telling me that if I punch in my number and say my name, they'll call me back in "9 to 15 minutes" when it's my turn. OK, I'll give that a shot. Back to work, and ten minutes later, Larry in Virginia has called me up and is joking about the pink blobs being a new feature to spark my creativity. Clearly he's not being paid by the call, since he carefully explains the whole return process to me and takes my information.

A while later, I get an e-mail from Canon Customer Care with an attachment -- already filled out with the serial number and shipping address I gave Larry -- for me to print out and put in the box with my camera. Hot on its heels came an e-mail from UPS with a link to my prepaid shipping label for printing and affixing to my package.

That's right -- not only are they fixing my three-and-a-half year old camera for free, but they're paying for the shipping there and back. Combine that with the terrific experience I had with the telephone service, and my day went from "oh no, my camera's dead!" to "wow, I'm getting a free repair!" in no time flat.

Canon, say hello to your customer for life.