Andrew Germain is the best IT troubleshooter I have had the good fortune to meet, and his understanding of ‘customer care’ is superior……..even at 1am in the morning!The other night I was working on a research project and was downloading some images from the internet when, suddenly, a rogue image appeared on my screen without warning. It wouldn’t go away and when I pressed ‘x’ to close the image, I triggered a vicious virus which sent my computer into meltdown. It locked up and all the .exe files were disengaged (apparently they’re the things that make your software operate!).Two hours later, with my head in my hands, and all contacts exhausted, I lumbered home, logged onto the internet (Google wasn’t affected for some reason) and punched ‘IT Troubleshooter Leeds’ into the search string. It threw up Andrew Germain of Faveo Computers. It was now 10.35pm and, desperate, I rang the mobile number realising that I had a key meeting the following day requiring Internet and Skype access.Andrew answered and, despite the fact that he had a 5am meeting the following day, he immediately grasped the seriousness of my situation and said “I’ll come round now”. Within 10 minutes he was outside my door with a small bag and a handful of trouble shooting DVD’s in his other hand. I made Andrew a cup of coffee and he set to work, not leaving my house until he had cleaned the computer, fixed the problem, disengaged and re loaded my Orange dongle software, and run two major virus checks. At 1am Andrew smiled, said it would be £50 and headed off to his bed. What a star! He dug me out of a major hole and left me with such a fantastic feeling about the quality of his service, that I simply felt the need to blog about this man. So often society – and particularly retailers – talk about ‘customer care’ in a completely meaningless way. By contrast I had rung Orange mobile earlier and had the presence of mind to get the name of my ‘operator’ (Gavin), who was based in Darlington. If we got cut off, I thought, I would be able to ring him back. We did, I phoned Orange a second time and Tracy (my new operative) said she was unable to put me through because I didn’t know the man’s extension. I knew his name, the city and call centre he worked in but that wasn’t enough. Good customer care eh?Customer care is a.n abused and misused title. It means looking after the customer in the best possible way. Real customer care should leave you feeling fantastic about the people who have served you. Andrew left me with a feeling that I have not felt for years. It came as a shock. Andrew you demonstrated amazing customer care. His website can be found at www.faveocomputers.co.uk. Use him, he was brilliant.
