wang@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang) (04/12/90)
Considering the squawks/grumbles/flames that have been floating through this newsgroup re Gateway 2000 and PC Brand, I thought I'd bore you all with a few words regarding the good service I have recently gotten from Northgate and Q-Tek. Any company can (and will) make mistakes. The exceptional companies distinguish themselves by how they handle their mistakes. The truly outstanding companies distinguish themselves by how they INSURE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, REGARDLESS of whose mistake it actually was. First, Northgate. I purchased a Northgate 386-20 last February, and it has so far been a durable, trouble-free workhorse. (This was just before Northgate introduced their Elegance and Slimline series of computers, and just before Gateway 2000 came out with their splash pages in Computer Shopper.) When I moved out to Illinois to attend grad school last August, I had my computer shipped to me via UPS. Something must have gotten jarred in transit, because the power supply blew out the first time I turned my machine on. Since I was still on warranty, I called Northgate up, and they sent me a replacement power supply via FedEx, which arrived the next day. Total down-time: 16 hours! Less than two weeks ago (on March 31), my power supply blew out again, at 3:30 in the morning. I called up Northgate's 24-hour Tech Support line (which, incidentally, has been upgraded to a toll-free 800 number!) and discussed my problem with a knowledgable and courteous technician. Since my warranty had expired, I was faced with the choice of ordering a new power supply, or of sending my power supply in for repairs at $65/hour (wow!), which would most likely result (so I was told) in the repair department simply tossing my old power supply and sending me a new one, charging me for labor AND parts. So I called up their Sales dept (at about 03:45 AM!) and ordered a replacement power supply. The power supply arrived on Tuesday the 9th, but there was a slight mix-up in the shipment. I have an older Northgate machine, and my power switch (which has a small LED on it) has three connectors. The newer Northgate machines use a different power switch that has four connectors. (The only real difference is that on my system there's an extra Y-connector that merges two of the wires from the power supply onto a single connector on the power switch -- unfortunately, this Y-connector is securely wrapped in insulating material, so I can't plug things onto it.) I specifically ordered the 3-connector power supply, but Northgate shipped me the 4-connector model. So I called them back (at 10 PM) and explained the situation. Their solution: they will FedEx me a 3-connector power supply in exchange for the one I have, and it should arrive tomorrow. So on the one hand, I'm mildly annoyed that they slipped up in the first place, but on the other hand, I have nothing but praise for the way they recovered from their mistake. So, now onto Q-Tek, and the heretofore-untold Mystery of the Missing DRAM Chips. Don't hold your breaths... My Northgate 386 has 1 MB of RAM installed, which as we all know is not enough for squat. :-) So in January of this year, I went on a RAM hunt, scouring various magazines for memory chip dealers who sold 1 Mb x 80 ns DRAMs. I narrowed the list down to fifteen vendors, and called them all to get their latest prices. I finally settled on Q-Tek (which advertises in PC Week), which quoted the lowest price of $8.40 per chip. (They're under $8 each by now, but as I said, that was the best price at the moment.) So I sent them a check for 40 such chips on January 19. Here the story gets a little weird. I heard nothing about my shipment for more than two months. On March 26, I called them up and asked about my order. Their records showed that they shipped my order on January 24 by UPS Ground, and that UPS delivered it to my residence hall AND GOT A SIGNATURE FOR IT on January 26. (I live in a graduate residence hall (i.e. a dorm) at UIUC with about 800 other students. There's a front office on the ground floor that's staffed all day by attendants. Normally, UPS packages and all other items of mail that don't fit into a mailbox or require a signature are brought to the front office, where they are signed for, recorded, and held until their addressed recepients stop by to claim them.) Needless to say, I never heard anything about it. Furthermore, the front office has no record of my package arriving on the 26th. In addition, something was sufficiently fishy about the signing procedure for my package that UPS called Q-Tek back and explained basically what I described above re the front office of my hall signing for residents' packages. I don't have full details about this yet, but I do know that UPS usually does not feel the need to call up its clients and explain something as ordinary and commonplace as this -- something must have been abnormally wrong. The clincher is that the signature given for my package (and blithely accepted by UPS) is completely illegible, little more than a straight line. So can anybody venture a guess as to what happened? How's this: the office attendant steps out for a few minutes, e.g. to help another student or to go to the bathroom. The UPS driver arrives while the attendant is gone. Some dastardly fellow in the lounge, realizing what has just happened, greets the UPS driver as if he/she is the attendant just returning to the office, and talks the driver into handing over the day's packages. The UPS driver leaves, this lowly villain absconds with his/her loot, the real attendant returns none the wiser, and I'm left hanging in the wind... Anyways, I wrote up a formal letter stating that I never received my DRAM chips and mailed it to Q-Tek on the 30th, so they could get UPS to start an official inquiry. I just called them earlier today (the 11th), and Lewis in their shipping department told me that they had received my letter and forwarded it to UPS, and that I should be hearing directly from UPS any day now. What Lewis told me next blew me away, and prompted me to write this whole article. Keep in mind that all evidence shows that Q-Tek lived up to its end of the original sale, and that it was UPS who dropped the ball, not Q-Tek. UPS's "fault" notwithstanding, Lewis told me that he would have a replacement set of 40 1 Mb x 80 ns DRAMs shipped out to me today by UPS Air, and that Q-Tek would take over the onus of recovering the lost package from UPS! IMHO, that's OUTSTANDING service. So there you have it, my recent good experiences with two computer companies. I would unhesitatingly order from both companies again, and recommend them to anybody tired of getting the cold shoulder. BTW, I loved it when the PC-Brand customer told PC-Brand about Usenet, and their bad reviews thereon. Yan! The streets belong to the people! Give us the shaft and we WILL let the world know it, and GOOD LUCK getting any more business from the net! But on the other hand, service above and beyond the call of duty also deserves mention. Comments, flames, free Dinosaurs and/or Cadillacs to Eric Wang wang@cs.uicu.edu
MHS108@psuvm.psu.edu (Mark Solsman) (04/12/90)
nice to here about two good companies... see me posting about USA FLEX before you plan on ordering anything from them!
tmyers@athena.mit.edu (Tracy S Myers) (04/13/90)
In article <1990Apr11.233214.17459@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> wang@cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang) writes: >Considering the squawks/grumbles/flames that have been floating through this >newsgroup re Gateway 2000 and PC Brand, I thought I'd bore you all with a few >words regarding the good service I have recently gotten from Northgate and >Q-Tek. Any company can (and will) make mistakes. The exceptional companies >distinguish themselves by how they handle their mistakes. The truly > >Eric Wang >wang@cs.uicu.edu It is encouraging to hear something positive about Northgate after I have been fighting them all week. I hope the crummy service I got was a fluke. Given that I have heard very many good things about them, I would tend to think it was. Tracy Myers
jsulliva@cvbnet.UUCP (Jeff Sullivan, x4482 MS 14-13) (04/14/90)
Well, I can't praise the Northgate service or phone
support depts simply because my 386/16 has not given
me any cause to use either in the year I've owned it.
I do have a good feeling about their support and warranty
policies though, and that's something you can't buy.
My only experience with them was when I ordered my PC.
I was offered my choice of UPS or FedEx shipping. Since
FedEx was $50 more, I decided I could wait a few more
days. Still, once I had placed the order, I couldn't
wait to get it.
I called them back on the day they expected it to ship
and was told it would be delayed a few days. They said
call back on Monday, so I called back on Monday. They
said that it would probably ship that day. ("Yeah, right"
I thought). The next morning at 8:15, the FedEx truck
backed up to my house.
Northgate had paid the extra charges themselves so that
the machine would arrive on the date they promised.
I don't know how many of the other clone-makers would
have done the same.
Jeff Sullivan / Computervision/Prime \ {decvax|linus|sun}!cvbnet!jsulliva
CADDS R&D / Bedford, MA 01730 \ jsulliva@cvbnet.prime.com