While our customer experience is generally poor when it comes to many companies, I’ve encountered an area where the service and support have been outstanding. That’s the area of home connected devices, including home routers, connected audio systems, and security cameras. Now I can’t speak for all of the companies in this category of connected devices, but my last three experiences with three different products were surprisingly good.
On seperate occasions in the past month I needed help with my Eero mesh router, my Sonos home audio sytem and Blink cameras. While I’m usually able to troubleshoot issues myself, I encountered problems that I was not able to fix. In each case I called a toll free number and was connected with knowledgeable, competent help within a few minutes. And in each case, after giving permission, the CS agents were able to access my devices and network to troubleshoot and fix the issues, while I pretty much stood by. Moreover, they were available during non-business hours and over a weekend and two of the products were purchased a couple of years ago.
In the case of my Eero mesh WiFi router, I found my WiFi speed had slowed to a crawl. After confirming my incoming fiber optic service was ok, I contacted Eero. They were able to reset the system, something I was unable to do from home for an unknown reason, and reconnect each of the three Eero units throughout my home. They stayed on the line for the fifteen minutes it took and insured the system was running normally. While we never determined the cause, the problem has not reoccurred.
Of course when your WiFi goes out, it can effect other devices that don’t automatically reconnect. That happened with my four Blink cameras mounted around the outside of my home. The Blink customer service agent was able to test the system, determine that the node device that manages the cameras, was defective. Fortunately I had an extra one, and she was able to re-set up the entire system.
Of note is both Blink and Eero are companies now owned by Amazon.
Lastly, when two of my three Sonos speakers designed to work as a surround system in my family room lost their connection, they reconnected back, but to a room of different name. That prevented them from working as a surround system. A call to Sonos on a Sunday night put me in touch with a technician who corrected the problem in a couple of minutes.
Each of these companies are motivated to keep their products up and running, although none are tied to a monthly subscription fee. But having such capable service available takes the risk out of owning a complex product, especially devices that are not intuitive to troubleshoot. In each case I found that the agent was able to do things differently and a lot quicker than trying to follow the relatively poor user guides that accompany the products.
It used to be a Google search could help troubleshoot issues like these, but I’m finding what comes up are often articles with titles that appear they have answers, but really are clickbait pieces filled with ads and many words that tell you nothing.
While so many of our customer service experiences are so poor, it’s good to see some companies are there to help.