Guess it's just that kind of day.

[tanamiya.livejournal.com]

A woman and her daughter bring the daughter's laptop in to the store. I ask what the issue they're having is, and the daughter interrupts the mother by telling me she's through fixing it and just wants a new one. Great. She gives me her information and I check out the previous repairs in the system. Our store has a policy where if the laptop's been sent out for three repairs and requires a fourth, we'll just exchange the laptop. She has one previous repair -- a hard drive replacement, half a month ago. She's absolutely adamant she's had it in the store five or six times already. Given that she didn't have any other work orders on ony other phone numbers, I politely inform her that all I can do is check it in for repair.

No. That's not good enough. Her entire education relies solely on that laptop. Uh, sure. Let me call in the store manager...

The next twn minutes has the store manager involved with the daughter, and later the customer service rep also steps in, lays everything down in clear-cut terms, not unlike what I said earlier, and, naturally, the girl is starting to lose it. "Oh, they could write ANYTHING on those repair sheets!" she claims, thinking it's somehow better for us to just say their laptop is fixed, rather than actually fix it. Because, you know, it's not in our best interests to fix customer laptops and keep them from getting irate and coming back and wasting everyone's time. Really, it got to the point that another customer waiting for the store manager chimed in. "Can't you save your files onto a memory stick and use them in the school library?" It was about then that the waterworks came out, and the mother lead the snippety daughter out of the store.

Her mother came back in and gave me a chance to look at the laptop. The issue? It wasn't charging the battery, and she couldn't activate her reinstalled antivirus. I had to point out that the laptop stops charging the battery when it's already 100% fully charged. I noted that her Windows Live OneCare antivirus software had been discontinued, and replaced it with MSE for her, and sent her on her way. The other five or six times it was in the store? Little software issues, viruses, and tests of the wireless card, all of which are obviously not 'repairs.'

Lesson learned? Figure out what the customer's issue is before you let the managers break their hearts. Also, don't buy HP refurbished laptops.

Comments

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

I see this kind of thing all the time. Thankfully, we no longer sell equipment to students directly. Even then, the stuff we did sell was business grade stuff, not retail grade stuff designed to self destruct in 14-18 months.

[falnfenix]

yet another of the many reasons i don't work with the public.

[ssha.livejournal.com]

Dat's a fucked up icon right dere, misher...

[falnfenix]

you know you love the dancing zombie milk. :)

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

One would like to think girly learned a valuable lesson about how to deal with service people, especially that manners, truthfulness, and answering the questions quickly and simply will gain better results that "just do it".

One would like to think that.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

I'm cheering the nice mother who knew more about the problems with the laptop *and* how to deal with others than the daughter did...

[kingogre.livejournal.com]

Yes, concise quick answers with what the problem _IS_ gets things fixed.. golly gosh garn... and well hopefully mom smacks the daughter around a smidge about being a brat to _NICE_ people who fixed her computer.