T-Mobile (UK) Customer Service
It's a worrying state of affairs when you receive good customer service, and you find yourself surprised. Sad though this is, few companies inspire the terrible sense of customer support dread more than phone companies. I had visions of a telephone maze nightmare - you know the sort - "please enter pi to 200 significant digits to speak to an operator", followed by being forwarded through half a dozen different departments; none willing to resolve my issue.
The Problem
I have a T-Mobile MDA Compact - effectively a slightly large phone that also happens to be a PDA. I've had this phone for just a touch under 13 months and for the most part I've been happy with it.
Last week my phone decided it would be inappropriate to let me hear the person I'm talking to on the phone. The first time this happened I found myself thinking "hmm, a prank call". The second, it was my wife, and this seemed like too much of a co-incidence. Some amount of testing later and after checking the obvious volume control, there could be no doubt- my phone was unable to speak.
The Phone Call
I borrowed Lizzie's phone to call support on 150, and tried the magic '000' to bypass the phone maze and speak to an operator. This seemed to work, and a couple of minutes later I was speaking to a real person. The operator took down my details and confirmed account information, then said she would put me through to their technical department. This seemed fair enough, but shortly after she transferred me, I got cut off.
Oh dear. Frustrated, I called back, and got to speak to a different person. I explained the situation, and was asked if I minded holding while he spoke to the technical department. After listening to some more typically inoffensive but dull hold music, the operator returned. He was having trouble getting in touch with the technical department too - every time he seemed to get through, he got cut off. A familiar tale. At this point I had visions of having to call back tomorrow, but no!
He explained that he could treat this as a 'phone problem' rather than a specific MDA problem, and this would give another option for sorting this out. After taking down the phone model and IMEI number (interestingly. *#06# works on Windows 2003 smartphones, too) he checked the status of the phone, then asked me to hold again, while he spoke to someone else. After a short while he returned, apologised for the wait (again) and explained that he would put me through to this other person, and that they would definately be able to provide a solution.
The second representative explained that the phone was still covered under a 24 month warranty, and that it could be returned to them for repair within seven days, or I could drop it in to the nearest T-Mobile repair center. This turned out to be Ashford, which is possible, but a bit of a trek. I asked for them to send out the return pack, and was told this would be with me within 2-3 days. Best of all, he confirmed that this repair would be free of charge.
It's a shame I had to call back - this is something that T-Mobile should work to resolve, but the level of service from the guys I eventually spoke to was superb.
Here's hoping the rest of my repair is equally good...