Rogers Choco Promo

I recently went in the morning to a major Rogers location for updating the hardware of my daughter's cell phones. The first contact with staff was on the cool side. The person assisting us was sitting behind a long counter and did not stand up and join us as I am used to in that location (must be some new "stay-put" policy!).

Once we explained what we needed the rep started typing on his computer. His body language and terse responses communicated annoyance. I thought for a while it was because we disturbed their peaceful morning rumination, but it turned out that he was stuck trying to retrieve the account information.

Long story short, we selected the new phone (BB of course) and started the process of settling, which involves committing to a 3-years contract with exit penalties in order to get the subsidized cost of the phone. As soon as we signed on the dotted line a magic transformation in the attitude happened. Two bottles of water were offered. The contract was briefly explained, particularly the checklist of what a customer satisfaction survey to be expected in few days will be asking us.

Then, with the phone and papers we got handed two CD jewel cases. I was expecting the usual promotional materials, perhaps a manual in electronic format, or even a music selection like Nissan does sometimes.

To my surprise each case contained a thick CD made completely out of chocolate!



Now I don't know about you, but I am quite a chocolate fan. So I was initially pleasantly surprised. On second thought, however, and having eaten the chocolate, I have the following to say to my friends at Rogers:

• Thanks for the promotional chocolate; its quality was medium, but hey, it's free.

• While I am a chocolate fan, I would have much preferred a friendlier service before sale.

• I was not happy that despite being a VIP customer with significant spending with Rogers for many years, a hardware upgrade had to reset the account lock for another 3 years.

• I realize I am hostage to the only GSM carrier in Canada for the time being. All the chocolate of the world will not stop a hostage from seeking freedom. So I'll be seriously looking for alternatives as soon as other GSM carriers become available. Customer service is not post-sale token rewards. It starts with genuine and fair value of the products and services you offer your customers.

• Oh and by the way: After 4 months I am still trying to remove a Rogers monthly charge for web hosting that I canceled over six months ago for a web site that never ran on Rogers servers. I assure you, you can remove our web domain from your servers while keeping our (hosted exchange) email domain.
  

Gadget Decoys

I have looking into replacing my good old iPAQ with the Blackberry Bold.

Since its announcement I have been trying to get my hands on a real unit just for a few minutes to get a feel for its browser, GPS and other applications. Everywhere I have asked so far (Rogers, Best Buy, ...), I get only a decoy and it is chained to a security device on top of that!

When cellular devices were just phones you could get a reasonable feel for the keypad from the decoy. But to make a decision on a $600 device (that's the price without a plan) based on the colored sticker representing the screen, without having a chance to see the the actual resolution and display quality or without looking at the bundled navigation application etc. is just nonsense.

We can test drive a car but not a smart phone! If we applied the same logic to car dealerships, you would be seated in a body of the car you're interested in, without engine of course. The decoy would be tethered to a central pole, and you would be asked to test drive it by pushing it around the pole with your own legs (two large holes to the ground are provided on the driver side for that purpose!).

WirelessWave has an ad inviting prospects to come and "play" with the Bold. I am going to find out if they too play with decoys only. Stay tuned!