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I recently read Seth Godin’s account of dealing with Verizon Wireless customer service.  He speaks about dealing with two, three, four plus people on the phone to get his problem solved.  Perhaps, I have been extremely lucky, perhaps I have been well informed about what I need done, or perhaps the company is dying and is trying to reverse their theory about customer service so they don’t get their asses handed to them.

I, personally have had very few problems with Sprint.  I can’t speak for others I know, my friends went through six different people and several hours of her time to try and get a problem solved.  The very same problem that I called about for her, received timely help, and had fixed in no more than 15 minutes.

By all means, gasp away, because in most cases if I need to contact customer service, I am in and out, problem resolved in less than half an hour.  How you may say?  All you have to do is become as smart as the person you are dealing with.

I learned a long time ago that I don’t like frustration.  I hated trying to explain to someone my problems that I knew little about.  It was efficient for me, and it made them guess at what I wanted accomplished.  This goes for everything in life, not just customer service at your wireless provider.  Here is how you become as smart as the person you are dealing with: research.

In today’s world, you can minimize your time with the customer service people by being knowledgeable.  If your phone spits out an error, quickly enter it into Google with keywords like your phones make and model along with the world ‘help’ or ‘problem.’  Many times you may find an answer on how to fix your issue right then and their.  Other times, you get a name for your problem.  In the case of my friend, she was not able to access the internet on her phone, completely voiding her unlimited data plan.  When she would talk on the phone with the people at Sprint, she would tell them that the internet on her phone was not working.  Naturally they assume she wants to go through a wireless hot-spot.  Her plan entitled her to be able to use the internet anywhere, anytime.  Five minutes of research on my part produced that Sprint calls this function PCS Vision.  When I called customer service up, I said my friend has been having problems with connecting with PCS Vision making her data plan useless, how can this be remedied?

A minute or two later, I am taking the battery out of the phone, the lady on the other end is remotely updating the software, I put the battery back in, press some buttons, it works and I’m asking her to dinner next Friday to show my gratitude.  Well, all but the last part.  The point is, if you make yourself intelligent about your situation–five minutes of research, ten if you’re feeling arrogant or haven’t received something solid–can save you tens of minutes or hours, if not the embarrassment of stumbling through your problem with six different people.

Try to become knowledgeable.  Speak in their terms if at all possible.  Be polite, courteous, and respectful–they will like you and be easier to deal with.  Finally, if you get someone who is obviously a moron, you have the choice to end it and call back (make sure you get his name so when he answers you can call again), or you can ask to be transferred to someone higher, politely.

A little perusing through a Moto Q forum the other day found a Candlelight replacement application.  In case you don’t know, Candlelight is an application for smart phones that allows for quick backlight increasing or decreasing.  It saves you a lot of battery power.

This new application, Candlelight Replacement, can be found here, and allows for one to adust the brightness of the screen in increments and even fade between different levels.  Yes, you can do most of this through the phone menus, but that is tedious.  With the replacement program, one can just click on the desktop icon for it, and then proceed to change the brightness.

The forum post also says that you can make the phone’s backlight much brighter than normal, at loss of battery power of course, but perhaps you want a bright phone.  Hope this is found useful, enjoy.

I saw this on Design You Trust and I had to share it here.  It is so true however; if you don’t have an iPhone and someone you know does, your their.  I mean really.  You’re like BAM! “Can I hold your iPhone? Can I play with it? That things awesome. Isn’t it crazy expensive?” are just a few of the things that are coming out of your mouth.  So if you are like that, because I know I am.  This comic is for you.  Enjoy!

I have had the idea of this post for awhile now, however, what Gary Vaynerchuk talked about today has prompted me to write it.  In his video, Gary talks about the kids of today and how they are embracing technology.  Everyone wants to be a part of Twitter, Flickr, whatever to get their name out there and then they wait for the world to recognize them.  He then goes on to speak about them seven to fifteen years down the road, that they will be the people buying things, people that will be choosing the advertisements, what comes and what goes.  Here is the problem.

While we as kids of today may embrace new technology–email, text, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, whatever social network is hot; we can do it all from our cell phones–the real facts are society has not.  The people who matter now, right at this instant are in their late 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and above.  These are all the people who have equity, these are the people that–for lack of a better word–yuppies will be come.  Those who are in their late teens and early 20’s challenging the brands will eventually mature and move their business plans in a more conservative direction.  Playing as if you have nothing to lose is fun when your young, you can bounce back.  Playing with everything at 50 is a scarier concept.

My point is, society has not accepted the Twitters and the Facebook.  The phone is still in, have you heard of it?  That is, or was, the primary function of the device you hold in your hand.  Not to surf the web, not to send text, not to check out what your girlfriend is doing on Facebook; it is to call people.  When some one who is influential wants answers, and wants them now, they call.  Kids today have a problem interacting with people over the phone; I know I do or did.  I am slowly coming to terms that the way to get things done in this society is to call.  Pick up the phone, make the call, you will have an answer in seconds, not minutes, not hours, not days.  You just need to learn to talk to people, interact, adjust to the new social skill that has been around for 100 years.  Kids can’t be so scared to do anything that doesn’t involve the typed word.

To jump back to what Gary said about being patient, waiting and developing your brand takes time.  I feel that it only takes this time because we have become complacent.  Complacent with the time it takes.  We have adapted to a society that comes to us.  To develop ourselves, we need to put ourselves out there in the real world.  Not just through social networks.  We need to live them, make the contacts, establish the connection in real life.  That’s how they did it before SMS.  That’s how companies were started and brands were made.  They did it then, and I bet it took a lot less time via word of mouth.