I’ve just been really impressed by the customer service over at Mactivate in Dublin. My Macbook battery packed up while I was working remotely and their service department couldn’t do enough for me. They set me up with a brand new battery and told me to come back on Monday when they’d have a replacement ready for my other one. I’m not sure they were impressed to see Vista running when the laptop powered back up but Ill be back on Monday for my other battery, a copy of OSX Leopard and another drool at all that gorgeous Apple hardware.

Anyway – having free net access on the laptop and being able to fix a client’s site this evening while travellng to Cork was such a bonus that I thought I’d mention them and link to their hotel in Tipperary

Thanks guys. WIFI in hotels can be such a rip off that it’s nice to see a hotel provide a little extra for guests.

Yesterday I got a nice email from the developers of some software we use in our Virtual Tours services. Not only was a new edition available but it was a free upgrade (worth over 200 Euro) to us for being long-term customers. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, I noticed they’d also extended their licensing to allow one user license to cover a desktop AND a laptop computer. Now thats why I sometimes run with the smaller guys – more innovation too! And I did use their software on both my desktop and laptop and it was annoying that I had to have two separate licenses. Hopefully when these guys become the industry standard in Virtual Tour software they won’t become any less innovative and shockingly generous with their product.

Deepmetrix have always had great customer support. Having been bought by Microsoft, the good work looks set to continue. It’s inevitable that there should be some downtime while they integrate the two systems (Live Stats and Microsoft PPC AdCenter). What wasn’t expected were some of the great emails we’ve had lately keeping us informed and rewarding us for staying on board during the tranistion. Cheers for the Microsoft AdCenter credit. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Dear Peter Knight,

As you know, Microsoft acquired DeepMetrix earlier this year. We’re excited to let you know that you will no longer be charged for current services and support as we work on the next generation of service-based analytics. Your last invoice is for the September billing period and you will continue to have access to current services and technical support at no charge.

Thank you for your patience through this transition. Watch for updates with more information and opportunities for you to provide feedback and be part of the new services we are building.

If you have any questions, or feedback, please contact our support team at: acahelp@microsoft.comSincerely,
Kevin Vaudry, Program Manager
Microsoft

DeepMetrix LiveStats Customers

Please accept our sincere apologies for the lengthy downtime of the LiveStats services. The outage lasted much longer than anticipated and we at Microsoft regret the error.

To thank you for your patience and understanding, next week we will send you an adCenter credit for $50 (USD) worth of search advertising and some more information about our continued dedication to you and all our DeepMetrix customers.

Again, please accept our apologies for the downtime of the LiveStats services. We will make every effort to prevent such an event from occurring again and we look forward to working with you.
Best regards,The Microsoft adCenter Team

Probably the most important professional relationship a Design company can have is the relationship with their Hosting provider(s). There is simply no other service you will rely on so much over the years to keep your business (and client’s) running smoothly. So when a friend’s web site disappeared recently and her Spanish hosting company were not being very responsive, we were all at a loss as to what to do. Her web designer has gone AWOL and was not returning calls or emails. All her documents were in Spain with her business and she had no PC or fax over here while on a short break.
We use two Irish Hosting companies in particular and they’re both very good. Today I want to single out Blacknight Solutions for going above and beyond the call of duty and helping out someone who is neither a client of mine or Blacknight Hosting.

I’ve always considered it vital to get instant support in person when the situation is critical and not be shoe-horned through a email ticketed system that is ignored for days or met with a lukewarm response. I consider it an amazing level of service when Michele personally took the time to communicate (in Spanish via phone and fax) with all parties involved to try and get a web site back online for a friend of the family.

Thanks Michele! :O)

Let me explain.

I was put on hold today and subjected to some really loud chart music that was about 5 times the volume of the person I was dealing with. A pleasant experience with a professional outift was quickly soured by a trashy blast that clearly didn’t fit with their corporate image. It physically hurt my ears. I wasn’t certain if this was the same company. I definitely wanted to hang up.
For a moment I wondered ‘How can they let this happen? It’s AWFUL’.

And then I realised that they probably don’t even know it is happening. It’s probably not very often the Marketing Dept dial their own main desk from outside. It’s absolute that they would change things if they were aware.

So when is the last time you called your own company, stood on the other side of the counter, filled in your own web site forms or asked the Sales dept for a quote?

Probably never. But you would be amazed at what the view is like from over here.

Getty images have bought Stockbyte for $135m. Stockbyte are an Irish company founded in 1997 by Jerry Kennelly and are highly regarded in creative circles for the quality of their imagery.
Last June I took a half day and headed for a coffee in the village. Thinking that the world had probably done the same, I was suprised when my mobile rang and it was a very nice lady from Stockbyte calling me to thank me for my order and enquire if she could do anything else for me.

I was pleasantly suprised because

1. I had only just purchased the image earlier in the week.
2. It was the first time I’d bought from Stockbyte.
3. In the past 6 years of buying stock photo for clients from 4 different agencies, they were the first company to call, say hi and check in.
4. The image only cost about 100 Euros so it was hardly a big spend.

It was great nevertheless to get the call and the attention. Furthermore, when I got home I had this message in my mailbox

Hi Peter,

Thank you for taking my call today it was great to talk with you.

As I mentioned I will be your Account Manager for the future. Contact me at anytime if you wish to avail of our Free search service, we can usually send you on a lightbox within the hour.

My contact details are as follows:

S Kelleher
email:
Toll Free:

So, nice work from Gerry, Miss Kelleher and all the staff at Stockbyte!

As a result of this I have been doing more listening myself lately. Listening but also looking. Looking for great examples of customer care in my own every day life and also (perhaps as significantly) looking for bad customer service and learning from that too.

And so here’s a little story where I was fortunate enough to be on the recieving end of great customer care from a dublin outfit I have always been impressed with. It’s a slightly embarassing story too and will make me look like a right eejit. But in the interests of blogging and your own amusement I will proceed.

I’ve been playing guitar and writing my own music for the last 19 years. I stopped playing for a while as college work (National College of Art & Design) became more demanding but making music has always been part of my life and a part that i’ve been revisiting a lot more lately. After buying a new Fender last year in Musician Inc and watching it sit in the corner with no amp I decided to head back to the guys and get a Fender Blues Junior.

The sound is amazing – sweet, clear and the tone is gorgeous. My writing has been more prolific even in the last few weeks and playing music again has really complimented my design work too.
And then one morning it all stopped.

No sound, no blues, no jazz. Nothing at full volume. Nothing from different sockets from different guitars in different rooms at any time of the day or night. In short, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift had all left the building.

So to get to the point…

Amp sent back to shop.
Loose valve is tightened.
Amp is returned.
Amp plugged in. No sound.
Phonecall to store.

Amp sent back to shop.
Amp gets a week of playing, TLC and abuse.
Impatient phonecall and visit to shop where “Amp is working perfectly”.
Amp is returned.
Amp plugged in. No sound.
Phonecall to store.

Amp, Peter and my own guitar sent back to shop.
Amp plugged in and Hallelujah – sound!!

I couldn’t believe it. It was the old lead I had all the time. I am normally a lot more pragmatic and methodological than to have overlooked something so simple and I was hugely embarassed.

But the point of all this was to credit Colin in Musician for his patience with me and he even insisted that I should take a new lead for free. An expensive one at that. So thats what I call great customer service. I was in the wrong all the time. The lads never lost patience and I came out of the whole situation in a better position than before.

If you’re thinking about taking up guitar or getting a new amp, pedal or lead (working one) then you could do worse than drop into Musician on Drury Street, Dublin.