‘Customer care’? You’re a customer, but I don’t care...

AND now, another one from the “You positively cannot make up this stuff ” department: my wife and I were watching TV on Tuesday evening when on came a commercial about recycling glass.

Recycling just one glass bottle saves enough electricity to power a single light for a few minutes, it said. Recycling a number of bottles save enough electricity to power a toaster for a decent period.

Then, the ad went on: “Recycling 30 tons of glass saves enough electricity to power a residential suburb for…”

And the lights went out. Exactly then.

At least I did pay attention to the ad: when we finished laughing (it pays to have a sense of humour when dealing with things Joburg municipal these days) we decided perhaps the Universe was punishing us for not recycling enough.

A DStv ad caught my eye this week because it featured that almost mythical person: a sensitive man. This guy sees his wife engrossed in her soapies every day and decides if he can’t beat her, he should join her. So, using his new Explora decoder, he records “catch up” sessions of the shows she watches. Then he surprises her at the dinner table by talking about some emotional entanglement on the soap.

The punchline is something along the lines of “If you love someone, then share what they love” – and doing that becomes much easier with the Explora decoder.

The ad makes an elegant point about the abilities of the new decoder… including the ability to bring couples closer together. Nice blend of practical and romantic and it showcases the product well, so it gets DStv an Orchid.

However, in reality, the company’s Dual View decoders also provide a solution to the potential home-wrecking conundrum of who gets the remote. I cannot see myself ever ploughing through too many “jodhpur movies”– the Jane Austentype of stuff so beloved by wife and daughter – to prove I am a romantic. Too old for that.

Mind you, I can’t see my wife recording episodes of Car SOS, Overhaulin’, Fast n’ Loud or Top Gear just to prove her love for me. Sometimes the twain truly don’t often meet… especially when it comes to taste in entertainment.

A while ago I had a rant about atrocious Samsung customer service. At one stage, I sent them an e-mail asking whether their laser printer shipped with a USB cable (because two examples I had tried to buy did not have them). They came back to me about eight working days later (no rush in Samsung, apparently) telling me that the printers do come with cables and I should go back to the supplier.

Understandably peeved that they should take so long to get back to me and that I had already been the supplier route – and given up on them and got a Canon printer – I decided to give them a piece of my mind. I went on the website and tried to go to the customer feedback form. “Page doesn’t exist” was the message I got at least three times.

Ah ha – I am not easily deterred by technology so I thought I would try the chat line (it was still about half an hour before it closed). Same result: No page. No working chat line.

Wonderful show from a company which prides itself on being on the cutting edge of technology.

The same week, my wife eventually got my daughter’s phone back. It had been with Samsung’s “Customer Care” (what a misnomer that is) centre for almost seven weeks. In that time, my wife had not received an e-mail, an SMS or a phone call about whether the phone had been repaired.

When she tried to call the centre, the phone either rang unanswered or was engaged.

This is a common complaint – have a look at Hellopeter and you’ll see what I mean.

The only reason my wife was answered – by e-mail – was, I believe, that she threatened to call the cops and lay a charge of theft of the phone.

If that is the extent a customer has to go to in order to get noticed, Samsung, you have something seriously wrong in your system.

So you get another Onion, because you apparently don’t seem to care about sorting the mess out.

Incidentally, my wife got a call from someone asking about her experience with the customer service at Samsung. On a scale of 1 to 7 (one being excellent and 7 being poor) how would you rate Samsung. She gave them a 6.5… but then she is a bit of a softie – I would have given them a 9.