I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I have an iRobot Roomba Discovery. It’s an amazingly useful thing, and overall cheaper than maintaining a maid long term (even more if you consider ancillary costs in a socialist country).
But I’m not only in love with the little robot beastie that cleans our house - I’m in love with iRobot’s customer service.
Being in Costa Rica, customer service for a specialized piece of equipment like this is always a concern. Will I be able to find someone to service it? Will the company respond timely to my requests?
About a year ago I lost a small cog - completely my fault. I wanted to order a replacement one from the iRobot site, but not even knowing what they were called, I e-mailed them first. A customer service rep promptly answered, asked for my postal address, and sent me a couple cogs free of charge right away.
The hard-working robot worked happily for almost a year, until about a week ago when we began noticing some problems - it didn’t seem to be vacuuming. I e-mailed iRobot, who asked for the serial number, and promptly told me it needed replacing and sent me an RMA and replacement instructions.
I delayed sending it, while I looked for a box to ship it in. Yesterday I got a call from the customs service saying that I had a apckage waiting for me - lo and behold, it was the replacement Roomba. iRobot’s customer service shipped it immediately to the address they had on file for me since a year ago, without even waiting to receive the defective one.
That’s customer service to swear by.