RMAs and Customer Service

So sometime yesterday morning we had a short loss of power. Nomally everything is fine, but not this time around. Our 80-hour TiVo was a casualty. Which is odd, because it is the newer of the two units we have…barely over a year old. So I called TiVo, which referred me to Humax's Customer Relations department. Now I know they are a global company, and unfortunately, I automatically assumed I'd get someone holed up in an Indian call center, wasting their education away trying to help some backwood yocal try and get their Recordin' box to play some wraslin'…

I had NO hold time, and got straight through to Youlanda. I explained what was going on, that I had already unplugged the unit, let it sit for a few minutes and plugged it back in and that it was 'locked up'. She said "well, that was what I would have told you to do, so lets just go ahead and get a replacement unit out to you" and explained our options to me. I decided just to send the unit in first, rather than an advance replacement (since it would take the same amount of time to get this done by the time I got a call tag). Youlanda was very polite, understanding, and  suprisingly empathetic. She didn't talk down to me, she talked to me. She even gave me her extension and when she worked, so that if I needed anything she would be able to help. She took ownership of my problem, and wanted to take care of it through all of the steps.

 Now, I've been working for a company as a Customer Relations Associate. Meaning I've had to handle customer service issues – sometimes people wouldn't note accounts or things were just SO messed up it wasn't funny… but those things happen, and I was honestly suprised to hear another company who made sure everything was taken care of when something went wrong. So Kudos to you, Humax…I'll definately be getting my future TiVos from you. Now just to fix TiVo and their retarded pricing structure.

Yet another reason to get a TiVo.

I got an email today offering me  Dual Tuner TiVo, and a year of service for $254. Man oh man! That would soooooo rock! Too bad my car has decided to go ka-BOOM. I'm about this close to putting myself out on the street corner. Lower end of the estimates was about $1700, and the high end was $2700. Could my week get any worse? Yes. A good friend of mine passed away last week. 

I still *heart* my TiVo.

So I have found yet another reason to love my TiVo. Turns out you can now download and listen to podcasts with your TiVo, as well as a few mind numbing games on there – which can be a PITA when it comes to using the remote to play, but hey, its still slick.

The Podcasting feature? I like it, but I’m really not too into listening to podcasts. Unlike the rest of the internets. Go figure.