What I learned from Blackberry

So, I have been in Blackberry hell for the past few days. Why? Simple! After months of having two devices (iPod for music and Blackberry for everything else), I decided to transfer all my music onto my Blackberry. Simple, or so I thought. Wrong! It’s working better, but still not right.

Over the course of the last 4 days, here’s what I have spent the past 6 hours doing, (mostly with the assistance of Blackberry’s tier two tech support):

Rebooted my PC at least 8 times
Uninstalled old software from my PC and Blackberry
Installed new software onto my PC and Blackberry
Uninstalled the new software from my PC and Blackberry
Reinstalled the software again
Formatted my Blackberry’s memory chip in my device (twice)

You can see where I am going with this – and it’s not to a good place. Anyway, here’s what I learned from the many interactions I had and will still have with RIM tech support:

1. Answer each call promptly – The reason why people are calling is because they need answers and they’re frustrated. Putting them on hold for 15 minutes with an annoying message saying how important your customers are to you is hardly appeasing. In fact it’s downright aggravating. Respect the fact that your customers’ time is no less valuable than your own

2. Speak the language – I am no racist and have no issues getting help from anyone who can fix my problem. But when I hit 2 for English, then I think it is fair for me to expect the person on the other end of the phone to actually speak and understand English

3. Keep notes – Since I had to call in at least 7 times over the past 3 days, I really enjoyed the fact that each call had been well documented. Although I spoke to a different agent each time, it was clear they had comprehensive and accurate notes as to what the person prior did or said

4. Know your stuff (winging it is not good enough or as my father says, pretty good is actually petty bad) – Again, the reason why people call tech support is because they want their problem fixed as fast as possible. They are not really interested in the complexities of computing – they just want their problem fixed

5. Be open – This is a 24 hour world. People work off-shifts and do all-nighters --- even I do from time to time. Nothing sucks as much as not being able to have your problem solved anytime

Are my problems all solved?
Yes, except for one quirk that seems more to be a gmail thing than a Blackberry issue. Does Blackberry score well on all the above? Hell yea!