I did not have good customer service experiences throughout February, in different ways with different companies.

My saga of getting a replacement card with CapitalOne was finally resolved, but I'm even less impressed with their documentation system and procedures.  Apparently the original replacement card I requested went through some 'approval' process, and no one could tell me about it til three days before I got the card, with the 3rd request for priority mailing.  And when the account supervisor misheard "reporting" as "recording", well, I suspect that there's a reason for his paranoia.   

But I will say this; the last customer service rep I spoke to, Vik, was very nice, very helpful, and put me through to a supervisor almost immediately.  He actually cheered me up, and made me smile, reminding me it's a good day, and not to let the problems get in the way of enjoying it. 

I had trouble with my new HD TV, with the picture being zoomed bigger than the screen. No matter what picture mode I chose, I could not change it.  The problem was ultimately with the Time Warner remote, but neither Samsung nor Time Warner's sites were very helpful.  No information about functionality online.  The Samsung site was insanely unhelpful, and I kept going in circles.  I had to create a service request online to get phone support, which didn't have the support hours available, so it took a few calls.  They couldn't help me, but I was able to finally get a field support request. 

It should've been resolved online. If not that, the phone, by first tier support.  But it had to go to field support.  Where the situation completely changed.  I got a call two days before the "first available day" estimate from First Choice, the contracted field support company.  Then the assigned tech called me a few hours early to say he thought he knew the problem, and walked me through clicking on the # pound button, which is not lableled as Zoom, and I've never knowingly used.  The cats probably stepped on it.

It should have been resolved by looking at the website, either Samsung's or Time Warner's. Or both. But I'm glad Eric (?) of First Choice is getting paid for it, because he was doing his job and doing it well.  Good for him, since he had all the right stuff; good attitude, clear instructions, and repeatedly asked if I had any other questions. I feel better about this TV purchase because if I need further assistance, I'm confident in the field support. If not the web and phone support.

And lastly; convenience and initial cost savings aren't always worth it.  My old computer has been dying for a couple of years, So I figured it was time for a new one.  I'd built this thing the day after knee surgery, when I still had a pain pump and loaded up on Vicodin. It worked perfectly the first time. Unfortunately, it had been dying the last couple of years, and finally I couldn't take it any more.  I opted to go to NewEgg.com and buy a pre-built system, as it was cheaper than what I was planning on building, and could be modified as needed, and I didn't need all the bells and whistles I was considering just yet.

Stupid me.  It was an Acer system.  It died literally 30 days after it was delivered.  Very loudly.  I noticed the day before it died the HD was spinning a bit loudly, and since I got it, the mouse was not very responsive after being in sleep mode. But that last night, 30 days after I got it, it spun up loud enough to compete with a lawnmower engine, and died. And revives just long enough to get to a boot screen before dying again. 

My confidence was already waning when they sent me an email telling me to back up before I tried their fix. Yeah, I can backup a computer that stays on for less than a minute.  I am not a fan of generic responses that aren't tailored to the actual situation.  Let alone it took me a half hour to gather the information required to get help.

Their online support is slow, with more than 24 hours to respond to follow ups. And their phone support is worse; the guy actually talked over me and didn't seem able to provide any information without me specifically asking for it.   They did eventually send me a URL to request service. But they want me to provide my password with no privacy policy statement. And I have to pay for shipping. Or, very generous of them, I can give them my credit card number to ship a new hard drive, and send my old one back.  Uh, no, I'll just fix it myself. And not buy Acer products ever again.


And lastly, I did my first, and probably last Zappos order.  I wanted sassy new shoes to wear to a conference on the 27th.  With the free shipping both ways is great, but the shoes, shoes aren't one size fits all, and despite lots of reviews saying true to size, were too snug on the toes.  It was very easy to get the shipping label and send them back.  But therein lies the problem.

I shipped them back on 2/18.  It took until 2/24 to actually get the credit code to use for replacements, two days after I saw the credit showing on my account. There seemed to be a real disconnect with processing the return and issuing the credit. And the replacement shoes I wanted were sold out by the time I got the credit. I ended up getting a pair of sandals I wasn't going to buy for another few weeks, and never got the shoes I'd wanted for the conference. And the sandals aren't that comfortable, and make that evil "flickeh flickeh" noise when I walk. I'd return them, but it's not worth the hassle.

Zappos deserves a whole post in itself, because in some ways they have fantastic features, which are diminished by the really frustrating ones.  I could see I had the $75 credit days before I could actually use it, and when the return status was still showing "return in progress".  It never showed "received" but went straight to "completed" (and before I got the credit code). I had to make a customer service request to get the credit code sent again, 

I had to get the credit code in email, instead of having it post to my account.  The original email arrived several hours after the followup email. Ands speaking of email, they're great with finding ways for you to get email alerts, but you can't readily manage them. After trying five times to get unsubscribed from their daily digest, I had to resort to yet another customer service request to actually getting unsubscribed.  Having email management options on the account page seems pretty basic to me, but that's apparently not a priority for them.  Although after all this, I got two emails about being part of their new VIP club. Thanks, but I don't think so.  I'm not sure how much saying if this wasn't resolved that day, I wanted a refund.  All lthe cheery "customer loyalty team" verbiage doesn't work on me.

Their CEO and social media guru are following me on Twitter because I mentioned Zappos. Well and good, but could you all spend more time in making your site  work a bit more like, say Newegg? 

I'm not completely soured on online ordering, as I've had really good experiences with NewEgg.com and Amazon.com, and Reuseablebags.com, but this has all been a reminder to not be so open minded.