Service as it should be.

[gstark]

Maxwells: please read, take note, and learn and emulate.

On Christmas Eve last, my ASUS laptop died. I was trying to access it across the LAN, and I was not getting any response. Upon lifting the screen, I had a BSOD. The HDD was making funny noises and the system was refusing to boot.

Given that two days hence I was travelling to the US, and needing the system for that trip, this was what cpuld be termed as "not a good thing".

Clearly the 2 year warranty (the system was just under 18 months' old) was not going to come into play within that sort of timeframe, so I went and sourced a replacement drive for the trip. A couple of hours later I was preparing to install a replacement drive, but the old drive was now working.

I set up the new drive, retrieving the essential stuff from the previously dead drive, and proceeded under the presumption that this was the beginning of the end for this original drive, and that it was now unable to be relied upon.

About a month after my return form the US I again swapped drives, reinstalling the original, not-to-be-trusted unit, using it for essentially non critical functions, backing up frequently, and hoping that it would fail in the relatively short term

Early last week I experienced a similar failure to the first one, and the system again recovered itself.

Late last Tuesday evening I noticed funny clicking noises coming from the drive, and before I even had time to properly shut the system down, I was again at a BSOD, but this time, the system (finally) failed to recover itself.

At last I could deal with it as a warranty issue, and my earlier decision to treat this drive as unable to be trusted was clearly a good one.

About 2 pm today I gave ASUS in Sydney a call. After a short time on Perma-Hold I was conencted to a first level support person.

An experience I normally dread, because too often these people just follow a script and haven't the foggiest idea abotu what they're talking about.

But I was pleasantly surpised: this person listened, and very quickly gave me a RMA, together with a phone number for their couriers, the account number to use, and details for packing the unit for shipment to them, promising a 5 day turnaround.

That's way better than Maxwell, for starters.

"Will it be any quicker if I bring it in to you?" I asked.

"yes"

"If I bring it in this afternoon, and it's just a straight disk swap, would there be a chance that I could wait while you carry out the repair?"

Always an interesting question to ask of service people, and rarely does one get an affirmative response.

"Please wait a few moments while I check"

Whoa! This is promising

The bottom line is that by 3:30 this afternoon my laptop had been repaired, with a new HDD installed in lieu of the faulty one. No arguments, no delays, nothing but exemplary service and smiles all round.

And an apology because "it took so long" - about 10 minutes!

Maxwells, you need to listen and learn that this is how warranty and service issues miust be handled. There are no excuses at all for anything less than this level of service, and your promises of two weeks' or four weeks' turnaround is simply not acceptable!

[Jeff]

I can only but agree.

Jeff

[MattC]

Wow, that is excellent service and turn around.

Cheers

[birddog114]

Gary,

You're not only the only one happy Asus's Customer.

I have a full A4 listing of good feed back from my customers, who chose Asus as their preferred Notebook supplier mainly Coporate Customer including NRMA CareFlight, Westpac Rescue Chopper, Polair fleet etc....

- HP took 10 days and no part with lot of BS.
- Toshiba was mucking with 4 days turn around.
- IBM is lot better than HP + Toshiba
- Dell is "Hell"

That made me supporting Asus and selling Asus notebook and they are not far from my base, Mr James CH Chen (NSW Channel Sales) supported us alot and their service guys are brilliants in both services & qualifications.

Maxwell? want to hear more?

[gstark]

Thanh,

Yes I'm very happy with ASUS's level of service here, and I've actuallyu had even better experience with IBM when the CD/DVD in my then 10 month old laptop failed back in 2001.

I called the help desk shortly after 9 in the morning.

By lunchtime, there was a tech on my doorstep, and within an hour, the faulty drive had been replaced and we'd kicked the tech out the front door.

I wasn't even aware that the warranty on that box was an on-site one, and that unit, plus the ASUS, are the only two, of 6 laptops in this house, that remain in regular use.

Given that it's 6 a year old P-III 500 running W2K, that's not too bad a statement, is it?

[Geoff]

Gary - thanks for this post. It was a very enlightening read. How fantastic would it be if a Maxwell rep were to actually read this?! It's almost tempting to call Maxwell's and describe your scenario. Having my D70 currently awaiting it's fix for the BGLOD I would be very keen to use your experience to them and see what their response is. I may just do this (with your permission of course - no names mentioned etc).

[Catcha]

Great story....

You have convinced me, that when it's time to get a laptop for my wife for uni it will be an Asus

[gstark]

Geoff,

Be my guest. I cedrtainly intend to use this when talking with the Maxwell people on April 29.

Ben,

That's exactly why I refuse to buy Dell or Sony - IME they treat their customers like shit, and for some strange reason I really don't like that at all.

But I'm especially happy to be able to relate a good story like this, rather than a bad one, which of course is so often the norm.

[Mj]

Always good to hear a positive story regarding support services... I can't be anywhere as polite as Gary as far as IBM services however... found their level of support for laptops downright shoddy and extremely expense when one of mine died just outside of warranty (of course).