Yesterday I actually had a call center experience that enhanced my relationship with the company. Past experience has taught me to expect a drawn out experience and a less than complete resolution.
Yesterday I called Epson for help with my scanner. I had several urgent documents to scan and email to a customer. I no longer have a functional fax and found scanning and emailing documents to work quite well. Yesterday my scanner mysteriously quit working. I turned everything off, rebooted my computer and even downloaded a new scanner driver. Nothing helped.
The person-less portion of the call center informed me that for faster service I would need the scanner model and serial number. I had both and was prepared. After a tolerable delay I was connected to an agent who took down my specific information and informed me that my scanner was out of warranty. He then informed me that for a nominal charge of $9.95 he could help me resolve my problem. The skeptic in me asked “Is that $9.95 per minute?” I was informed that it was the complete charge to resolve the problem. Things were looking good.
The first agent gave it his best shot but after about 20 minutes couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I was hoping not to get a brush off like, “It appears to be a problem with your Windows operating system, I suggest you call Microsoft.” Rather, he informed me that he needed to escalate the call to a more senior person and was reassured that there would not be any additional charge.
The second agent did a quick assessment and got right into the nitty-gritty of my computer. After about 15 minutes my scanner was back up and running. Before I could ask him what caused the problem, he asked me if I had added new software to my computer recently. I had in fact done so. He pointed out that software sometimes get corrupted or interfered with when some other seemingly unrelated software is added or updated. Without ‘dissing’ Microsoft, he mentioned that stuff gets left behind from standard deinstalls and reinstalls that can cause problems. He quickly mentioned not to worry about figuring out how to get to the bottom of it if it involved an Epson product. Just call them and for $9.95 they would fix the problem, even though they didn’t cause it. He had made great strides in converting me into a committed Epson customer, but he didn’t stop there.
In the course of digging through my files and folder he discovered that I had several other Epson products and offered to check them out to make sure they all had the latest updates-they didn’t and he fixed that and made sure everything was working. Next he asked me if I had any questions about using any of the products. I did and he quickly educated me. This stuff might have been in the manual but I didn’t find it or understand it. Now I did and am in a position to get more value out of my Epson products. I also realize that value of my relationship with Epson goes beyond the product.
