Brother! Now THAT'S what I call SERVICE!

An interesting thing happened today, and I guess I could make a blog of it.

I was sitting here doing some work and all of a sudden it sounded like a fax was going to come in on that new used beast I bought, then there was this long beeeeeeep and that was it. I looked over... no fax. Hmmm...

Then I saw the display was blinking on the monitor of my recycled Brother MyMio Fax/Printer/Scanner/Colour Copier beast with some sentences and a number. After I figured out what it said (it can be extremely difficult to read blinking, scrolling katakana), "call call center", I did and guess what? Apparently "Error 41" means that the printer head died and the machine must be repaired.

The tech guy asked me some standard questions (is it attached to a computer, does it have a cordless handset, what is the serial number on back, etc.). He also asked me if I bought the long term warranty on it. I said no and told him truthfully that I just purchased it a few weeks ago from a recycle shop. When he told me that the printer head was broken, I ben thinking that I would have to either take it back to the recycle shop (they gave me a month return-warranty on it), or pay for repairs...

And then... then... the guy said to me that I have the choice of either having it repaired FOR FREE, or that they would send me the next generation FOR FREE!

Holy smokes! I did not expect that, especially since I was not the original owner, nor did I purchase any X-years special guarantee that they usually offer as an "add on" to electronic products (one year included, three years for XXX extra, five years for YYY extra, etc.)

In addition to that he ALSO told me they will send new ink cartridges (four colours) FOR FREE as well!

I had to ask him to repeat it a few times in different ways because he was using "keigo", or polite Japanese which can become confusing as there are some different words and verbs and expressions that are not used in ordinary Japanese. But I finally realized in my daftness that they were actually offering to replace this machine with the next generation... for free!

Wow! Imagine that! I bought this used amazing beast for about $80 (the latest generations are about $400), it dies, and I get a NEW one (not latest generation I don't think, but still new). For free!

It was shipped yesterday, arrived today at 11am, and all I need to do is package this old one up in the box that the other one comes in, and send it back FOR FREE. Talk about the Universe being nice to me! I love you Universe!!

The tech guy then apologized profusely for the inconvenience (huh? inconvenience?? who? where?), and he proceeded to tell me that the newer model had a smaller footprint, and the paper was loaded from the underside on an internal tray as opposed to sitting up vertically in the back which makes it all smaller in general. He again apologized for the fact that thicker paper, or cards might not go smoothly through the machine. So he apologized for that potential inconvenience in the future as well!

Wow! Talk about something cool happening today!

In Japanese we have a phrase that looks like this:　　不幸中の幸い。

It is pronounced FU KOU CHUU NO SAIWAI ("foo co chew no sigh why" if I type it out phonetically for those of you who do not know how Japanese vowels are pronounced) and means "from misfortune comes fortune".

And that is exactly what this was!

Now THAT'S what I call BLOW MY SOCKS OFF CUSTOMER SERVICE, Brother!

I love you!

Cam

P.S. 13:51.... It took about 2.5 hours in total to get it all unpacked set up, installed test printed (wow! Good ultra fine quality photo printing!!), and the old stuff packed up and the courier called. Surprisingly the old software uninstalled and the new stuff installed with absolutely no glitches whatsoever. Even the network printers automatically found it! It's back to business as usual.