.KEYWORD palmart
.FLYINGHEAD PALM COMPUTING CARES!
.TITLE The story of customer service at Palm Computing, Inc.
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT palmart-cover.gif
.SUMMARY Last month, we ran a Letter to the Editor entitled "Will success spoil Palm Computing?" In it, a reader questioned Palm’s customer service and support. It sparked a lot of reader postings to the PowerBoards. This month, in a PalmPower Exclusive, representatives from Palm Computing directly address the customer service questions you raised. This is how it’s supposed to happen: manufacturers and users in a direct dialog. If you care about your Palm device, you owe it to yourself to read this important article.
.AUTHOR Gary Roberts and Jan Kovacs
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 About this special article
by David Gewirtz, PalmPower Editor-in-Chief
Last month, we ran a Letter to the Editor entitled "Will success spoil Palm Computing?" In it, a reader questioned the quality of Palm’s customer service and support. It’s our policy here at PalmPower (which, we feel obliged to state, is completely independent of Palm Computing) to run most well-written, well-reasoned letters from readers – even if they’re a bit controversial. This one was. It sparked an unexpected amount of discussion on the PowerBoards about problems readers had had with Palm customer service.
Honestly, as an independent publication, it’s kind of difficult to decide how to handle something like this. With millions of Palm devices sold and 20+ complaint letters we’ve gotten, is this a real problem with Palm service or just the few unlucky souls venting their frustration? We decided the best approach was to connect the folks at Palm directly with you. We asked them to write an article about the situation, and we’d publish it with the barest minimum of editing (we’re formatting it for the publication, but we’re not changing a single word of intent). You should note that the heading "Palm Computing Cares!" and the article title were also directly provided by Palm and used unedited.
So, here you go. This article was written by Gary Roberts, who’s Palm’s Senior Director of Palm Global Service & Support and Jan Kovacs, who’s Palm’s Customer Care Manager. We at PalmPower think this article is interesting, well intentioned, and seems to answer many of your concerns. But if you still have comments, there’s a link to the PowerBoards at the end of the article. Post your comments and you can be sure the Palm folks will read them.
.END_SIDEBAR
One favorite story on the Palm Computing campus is of a man who was riding his motorcycle with his Palm device in his back pocket. He hit a rock, was thrown clear of his motorcycle and proceeded to slide several yards along the pavement. As it happened, his Palm device was in the back pocket of his blue jeans, and he literally skidded on the product across the ground. He received barely a scrape from the incident. His Palm product not only saved his skin, but the product actually survived. In fact, it worked perfectly, and he was so delighted that he called Palm just to let us know.
Unfortunately, not all of the calls we get from our customers are so easily resolved. We know that since our products go everywhere with our customers, that sometimes things happen — they get dropped, driven on, left behind, and lost. Other times, there are installation problems — confusion about hooking up the cradle or downloading third-party software. Less frequently, a product simply does not work the way it should. That’s why we have our customer care and technical support programs in place — to help you get maximum use and enjoyment out of your Palm product.
Palm now has more than four million customers worldwide, and we are very aware of the role that word of mouth has played in our quick growth. More than 90% of our customers tell us in our surveys that they would recommend Palm products to a friend — and that is after they’ve had a reason to call customer care or tech support.
We consider that high percentage of customer referrals to be a critically important asset. In our role as service and support providers, we have a long-term view of our relationship with our customers, and our goal is to keep you a happy customer.
.H1 Tools and training
Our support teams go through extensive product support and customer service training to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge to find answers or solutions to our customers’ questions. We provide them with tools and resources, such as troubleshooting guides and resolution guidelines — in addition to some standard policies — so that they have the flexibility to work with our customers to come up with a solution that meets almost every person’s special needs.
After classroom training, phone representatives have a week or two of directly supervised calls, until we believe they are prepared to handle customer calls on their own.
We have a thorough process of new product training, and ongoing updates as new information on products is available. We also ask for feedback from our phone representatives, and we even conduct focus groups with them on how to make our ongoing training and customer support more effective. Also, we have created a number of service programs to address customer needs.
.H1 Palm’s service offerings
One of Palm’s service programs is the "Advance Exchange" program. The goal is to maximize your up-time with your Palm device. If a problem occurs with your organizer, we ship you a Palm-certified reconditioned replacement unit, before you send us your problematic one. We even pay all of the shipping both ways for domestic products. In the box with the replacement, we include a pre-paid shipping airbill for you to send your broken or failed unit to us. Just in case you need it, the replacement product is covered under warranty for three months, or through the end of your original warranty, whichever is longer.
Each reconditioned product is thoroughly tested and carefully checked for aesthetics and functionality.
The replacement product costs you nothing if your unit breaks while under warranty, and only $100 (including shipping) if your unit breaks or fails after the one-year warranty period has expired, or if the problem is not covered under warranty. The Advance Exchange program is very popular, as it usually gets a unit into your hands in one or two business days! You then just use the HotSync software to synchronize with the data already on your computer, and you’re ready to go.
Some of our customers prefer to have their unit repaired and returned ("Repair & Return" program), which is always an option. In this case, we ship an empty box to you, with a return, pre-paid airbill enclosed. You send your Palm organizer to us, and we ship your own repaired product back to you. This process ordinarily takes between five and seven business days.
.H1 Palm support representatives
You may want to know a little more about who is on the other end of the phone when you call us. Unlike others in the high tech industry, the majority of the people whom you interact with at our call centers are dedicated to supporting only Palm products — so they are experts in helping you.
Our call center teams are thoroughly trained on all of our products, including new products before we ship them. New team members go through several weeks of extensive product training and problem solving. You will never get an untrained person on the phone at Palm. After the classroom training, phone representatives spend time taking calls under direct supervision until we believe they are prepared to handle customer calls independently.
.H1 Improvements
We are always trying to improve the support process, and we evaluate measurable scores like average on-hold time and average duration of contact, as well studying the best and worst cases in a given month very carefully. Our goal is to deliver the most prompt, accurate information we can to every customer, and to resolve your issue the first time you contact us.
Nearly all of our customers tell us that they have access to email and the Internet, so watch for improvements in our communications using these media. By better utilizing the Internet, we will be able to provide you more information and faster support, day or night.
Soon, we will be offering certain service and repair options to our customers via email. In the next few months, we plan to deliver a new service repair order (SRO) system that will allow customers to check the status of their SRO via our web site.
We’re also very aware that our products are sold and in use around the world. You will see a concerted effort from us to improve international product support, with new support options scheduled to be available in the near future.
.H1 Recent dip in service levels
While we’re talking about improvements, we’re well aware from the letter to the editor of PalmPower Magazine, and some of the reaction to it on the PowerBoards, that some of you readers were among the customers who were impacted by the recent trouble we had during an upgrade process. We were doing some systems and process upgrades which, unfortunately, did not go as planned. This transition period caused a reduction in the normally quick response time and speed of resolution for some of the customers who contacted us during this period.
We want you to know that by the time this is published, we should have recovered all the data affected and made the appropriate systems and process corrections. We are completing the process of resolving all the issues that we believe were outstanding. We will soon be sending a note of apology to those customers who we know were affected, along with a token of our appreciation for their patience.
Our systems team has examined this incident in depth and has determined its root cause to ensure that service interruptions such as this do not happen again. We are confident that the recent improvements we’ve made will enhance your interactions with us, and we thank you for your understanding.
.H1 Reaching us
In the U.S., there are a few ways to reach us:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Call 1-847-262-PALM (1-847-262-7256) to reach a Technical Support specialist. Tech support is available from: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., CST, Monday through Friday; 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., CST, Saturday and Sunday.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Email support is also available through support@palm.com.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET For international customer care numbers, please check our Web site or the information that came in the box along with your product.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET For Customer Care, you can reach us toll free at 888-756-PALM (888-756-7256): 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Pacific time, Monday through Friday; 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Pacific time, Saturday and Sunday.
.END_LIST
Customer Care is the number to call if you have a unit that needs to be repaired due to a broken screen or other physical damage, or if you have non-technical questions about service, technical support, the status of a repair, or Palm policies. Here’s the mailing address:
Palm Computing, Inc.
Palm Customer Care, M/S 9106
P.O. Box 58007
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8007
.H1 Thank you
From all of us at Palm Computing Service and Support, we want to assure you that we are listening, and if you need us, we will be there for you. We appreciate your support of our products, and we enjoy hearing about your good experiences with our products, too. (You can submit stories via our Web site at http://www.palm.com.)
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Let us know your experiences with Palm products. You can post to the PowerBoards (see the link below) or send mail to info@palmpower.com.
As a recap, here’s the Palm contact information:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Call 1-847-262-PALM (1-847-262-7256) to reach a Technical Support specialist. Tech support is available from: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., CST, Monday through Friday; 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., CST, Saturday and Sunday.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Email support is also available through support@palm.com.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET For international customer care numbers, please check our Web site or the information that came in the box along with your product.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET For Customer Care, you can reach us toll free at 888-756-PALM (888-756-7256): 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Pacific time, Monday through Friday; 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Pacific time, Saturday and Sunday.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Palm Computing, Inc., Palm Customer Care, M/S 9106, P.O. Box 58007, Santa Clara, CA 95052-8007
.END_LIST
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Gary Roberts is Palm’s Senior Director of Palm Global Service & Support. Jan Kovacs is Palm’s Customer Care Manager. Contact them via support@palm.com. 3Com, Palm Computing and HotSync are registered trademarks and Palm is a trademark of 3Com Corporation or its subsidiaries.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6d52d
