Rich's Tongfamily (Richtong.net add-on)

I spent most of my time essentially documenting bugs, so in talking with Jan and Robbie, I realized that’s kind of unfair. I’ve had a couple of great customer experiences when things break and kudos to those companies that are using the web and just plain hard work to make it happen. Electronics are going to break and it means that it sometimes makes sens to pay more to get service, so in no particular order:
VAIO ? Notebook Computers. These guys have a great product in the T series. Every power geek is getting one. My T-140P/L died with a motherboard failure. Very hard to get a hold of someone, but (tip to everyone), if you are patient calling their 800 number, then you can get some great people. The woman I finally got fedexed me a recovery DVD and then the next day fedexed a box to put the notebook in. I sent it and within 48 hours, I had it back with a nice note from a technician in San Diego saying he replaced the motherboard. Wow, that’s service!
“Apple”:http://apple.com. My buddy “John”:http://www.theludwigs.com had his iPod Photo fail to boot, he took it to the store and they replaced it without question. My iPod Shuffle had a crooked USB pin, even though the store was jammed, the Apple Genius at the Genius Bar (that’s a great name!) replaced it in 15 minutes while he was simultaenously showing someone on a PC (!!) how to rip a CD and also reinstalling SP2 for some poor soul trying to get an old IBM Pentium 2 laptop to work with a brand new iPod Mini. Another guy had ripped his headphones up and was getting that replaced. Wow. Go customer service. Another soul was sending her iBook back and they were going to get the personal data off the hard drive for her.
“Nextlink Bluespoon”:http://blue-spoon.com. They make just the smallest, coolest, lightest bluetooth headsets. Weighs 10 grams if you can believe that. The AX initial models had plastics that broke, called the dealer, they said yes, sent email and an actual human names Magnuson sent me back personal mail saying yes and could I have your address. It doesn’t have to be a big company that has great service.
“JBL On Stage”: . The early model On Stage’s had lots of problems with static electricity and a sensitive part. Caused a huge storm on the Internet but they are using the web well. First, they put an “FAQ”:http://www.jbl.com/home/product_support/showFaqanswer.asp?faqId=2128&prod=JBL+ON+STAGE on their main site that was actually easy to find. Then they put a dedicated site called “jblonstagesupport.com”:http://jblonstagesupport.com where you can check your serial number and automatically get an RMA and a box shipped to you. No human intervention at all. Pretty neat!