Why Customer Service shouldn’t be overlooked…
I’m sure if you’re reading this you’ve heard of Moo amoung others.
Last week I moved house (being a student sucks having to move year after year), unlike last year which has us moaning at our landlords for 2 weeks to get the Internet hooked up. I was able to sort it out myself. I know it’s not a big deal and I’ve done it before so it was nothing “new”.
Anyway, I had to shop around for the best connection, price, set up cost etc. I had to because the housemates I’m with (one of which is the misses) didn’t want to have to fork out a small fortune for a connection. After a few hours of looking around at guys like Pipex (who are now Tiscalli, so I ran like the wind), Mad as a Fish, Eclipse and TitanADSL I couldn’t warrent spending £25-£30 a month for “up to 8 megs Broadband” along with a set up charge of £30-£50.
So, being the tropper that I am I didn’t give up and came across Be. A while ago I probably saw a TV ad for them or something and kind of recongised them from their pink star. So I look around a bit more, through all their packages, details, prices etc. I figured that £18 per month for “unlimited” Internet wasn’t bad at all. I’m not a huge downloader and a 1.3mbps upload was faster than I’d had before.
I go through the sign up process with a small problem of at 9am when I wanted to do it they had a technical problem. I came back around 12pm and signed up over lunch, the only problem I had was another ADSL connection was active on the phone line. I asked BT they said there wasn’t and after I’d signed up I raised a ticked with Be saying I didn’t have a MAC key they needed.
Now you’d think you’d have to wait 24 hours before they replied. Nope, in fact they raised a ticket with me asking for it. Not only did they contact me I also got a little SMS message from them telling me they had raised a ticket and as soon as possible I should go to the members area to reply. So I did. I then got another SMS saying that had replied an hour or so later. I checked, they said it wasn’t a problem and carried on anyway.
As mentioned by various people such as Andy Budd (I’ve got to find someone else to reference on usability type stuff!) referring to Innocent, iPhone etc. The first impression of the product is always important. I’ve almost has daily text messages from Be saying that my line has been tested, my payment has been taken, my activation date and finally that they’ve dispatched my “Be Box” (Router).
Now I’m looking forward to Wednesday evening when my “Be Box” will be at home and my line will be activated because they even asked me if delivering the “Be Box” on the 8th would be ok and if not replying to the text with 1, 2 or 3 each of which were different dates. I’ve replied and even the delivery company sent me a text from there saying they’ve changed the delivery date to the 9th when someone will be in to sign for it.
I’m glad I stuck with them, as always Customer Service is always an important part of a business and I’m glad I’ve stuck with Be for my ‘net connection for the following year. I may even stick with them for a little longer.
