Friday, July 8, 2011

Technical Support That Actually Helps? A Review of BW Technologies Technical Support


It seems every week I have a new experience with gas detector technical support, and for the first time on this blog, it's time to give a gas detector technical support department a gold star.


That happy smile is my face after I got off the phone.

Lets lay out my experience so other gas detector companies can learn how the pros do it.

1. When I called, a person answered the phone. Not just a person asking who do I want to be connected to, but an extremely friendly woman who sounded like she'd been waiting for my call just so she could have the joy of directing me to the correct department. I know that may sound hokey, but call the BW Technologies customer support line and hear for yourself : 888-749-8878.

2. When I mentioned I needed technical support, she told me it may be a few minutes on hold while I wait. No problem, I'm a savant when it comes to holding for tech support, I've called Microsoft and actually gotten a person before. What really impressed me about the holding, of all things, was that every minute or two, the woman who originally answered my call actually picked up the line to make sure I was still there and to apologize for the wait. To my knowledge, BW Technologies is the only company on the planet that does this. At this point, as far as I'm concerned, this woman is a saint. Which put me in a much better mood by the time I got tech support.

3. My issue had to deal with the eeprom sensor firmware going bad. Specifically, on startup, you get a Code 11 Sensor Eeprom Error. The only option is to press a button to turn it off with a message that says contact your local vendor. On my first call, I got a guy named Pete (his actual name according to the email is Pedro, in case any of his bosses read this). He looked up the issue in the computer, and the solution was to update the firmware on my Quattro. He walked me through a few attempts, and then we hit the snag point, I had an old IR connector and would need a new one. At this point, Pete said that he wanted to try a few places and look for a workaround and would then get back to me. Later that day, I had an email from Pete explaining what I'd need to do and what equipment I'd need.

4. The next day, I emailed Pete asking when he'd be available to walk me through something I still had a question on. He actually called me back within a half hour, while I was in a meeting, but left me a detailed message as to how I could get hold of him specifically when I called back. Lesson to all the other companies out there: Getting a personal bond between a technical service guy and a customer is a great thing for your business and causes blog posts like this to show up on the internet. I happened to call back while Pete was at lunch, but a guy named Mike was available to help me out. Here's where I assumed it would go bad, and that I'd get a jerk who I'd have to explain the whole problem again to.

5. Wrong. Mike was awesome too, and we spent about half an hour on the phone trying different methods of getting my detector back in running shape. What's the key here? When the first tries failed, MIKE KEPT TRYING. He worked with me, he asked me questions, he was involved and CARED that my gas detector got back up and running without needing it to be sent in. We ended the phone call with his giving me both his and Pete's direct lines in case I had any problems in the future.

Wow. Just wow. I was blown away. After the experiences I had a week ago, I was to the point that I thought all gas detector support departments were full of jerks. When Honeywell first bought BW Technologies, I was worried that they'd can all of the support staff and put in cheap people reading from a book. I couldn't have been more wrong. The BW Technical support staff does a phenomenal job, and I'd really like to commend them for all the help they've given me.

As an aside, if you have a GasAlert Quattro giving you the Code 11 Sensor Eeprom error. Call me, I'll walk you through everything we worked through and how to set it back up. 734-956-0539.

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