Nintendo Trusts Their Users, Goes Above And Beyond
Nintendo, apparently forgetting that they are a large corporation, went out of their way to make sure all the variables that caused John's Wii to glitch were addressed. Read his full letter inside.
John writes:
I just wanted to write to you about my dealings with Nintendo Customer Service. I've had a Wii for 2 years now and had my first problem with it about a month ago. When playing a game, specifically Resident Evil 4, green digital artifacts would show on the screen. It was also happening with Guitar Hero World Tour. I wen to the Nintendo website, looked up my serial number, and was informed that it was out of warranty(which I expected) and I would have to pay $75 for it to be fixed. I decided to call the customer service number and see if anything else could be done. I spoke to a very friendly woman who was in California. She looked up my serial number and informed me that it was, in fact, "still under warranty" and promptly took down the problem and e-mailed me a printable Fedex shipping label. I sent off the Wii and anxiously awaited its return. the next week my Wii came back, and on the paper detailing the repairs, it stated that they were not able to duplicate the problem. "Oh great" I thought to myself, but upon further reading I discovered that they had replaced the motherboard because it was the "suspected cause" of the problem, and also sent me 2 brand new copies of Resident Evil 4 and Guitar Hero World Tour, all at no cost. For my 2 year old Wii, I would say this is above and beyond the call of duty and wanted others to know.
Pic:[Mightynine]
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Comments:
Its always good to hear when a company does its customers right. Congrats!
Corporations should forget who they are more often.
Kudos to you, Nintendo.
way to go nintendo! that mario looks alot healthier than my avator
That's awesome.
Though I don't see how it was under warranty after 2 years, maybe Nintendo was just being nice about that too.
@Urgleglurk: thats above "great" customer service. Once they start providing free copies of third party publishers software on top of fixing the actual device it begins to transcend into some type of otherworldly transaction.
Well Nintendo can afford to do something like this when they can turn up their money-powered furnaces just to wipe their brows with money (that came from Gizmodo or here; I can't remember). But then again they're making up for the Gamecube...
Damn you sony! When my ps3 lens crapped out on me they made me pay $150 to get it repaired :( Still love my ps3 but still lol
This is the second story I have read towting Nintendo's awesome customer service (the other being a guy actually taking his to a nintendo headquarters broken and a half hour later leaving with it fixed at no charge). I think all companies, much less gaming, could learn a few lessons from this.
They did a similar thing for me too. Nothing as big but my wireless sensor was gone. They didnt ask me for a seriel number, date of purchase or anything. Just said "whats your address and well send you a new one"
@Urgleglurk: I've had a similar experience with Nintendo... hands down the best company I've ever worked with. Kudos N!
Nintendo only does one thing, videogames, so it must be good at that execution and work harder to keep their customers. Sony and Microsoft are big players in the videogame market but draw much more revenue from other sources, meaning they can be a little stingier with the games division. Part of why I'm a loyal nintendo customer is their game play, but customer service has always been a big part too.
Green digital artifacts? Sounds like the video chip was starting to overheat/desolder itself.
Nintendo has always had amazing customer service, if you live near them in CA its even better you can take in your console and they will fix it for you then and there no shipping needed. Had a buddy with a broken gamecube years ago, nintendo fixed it out of warrenty and it only took 1 week as it was such a minor repair.
This is one of many amazing Nintendo stories I've heard... above and beyond seems to be routine for them. In terms of customer service, Microsoft and Sony could learn a lot from them.
However, in terms of making a current-gen console that attracts third-party publishers to make anything requiring more effort than a lazy port, Nintendo now has some catching up to do :)
@Bizdady: That's because they sold a million Wii's in one week, and boxes and boxes of PS3's are collecting dust in stores and warehouses.
I'd be a happy company too if a fraction of a percentage is having problems with their Wii, so it can easily be replaced, whereas overheating and overpriced PS3's will be costly to both parties.
You better have put those 2 copies on ebay right away.
They've been like this for years, too: A friend of mine had her GBA SP stolen (back when GBA SP's were current) - when she called them to get her serial number to file a police report, they simply offered her a replacement at no cost.
Stories like this make me glad I purchased a Wii instead of another console.
A year and a half ago I dropped my Nintendo DS into some water. It was dead. I contacted Nintendo to send it in, but was very vague about what was wrong with it (other than the top screen wasn't working) and water damage is specifically not covered under warranty.
A week later I got it back, repaired, with a letter saying that water damage isn't covered, but they fixed it anyway as a customer courtesy.
The green dot thing is a known problem with the older motherboards (I believe it's related to the graphics chipset overheating).
My roommate's had the same problem and they replaced it with pretty much no trouble. Nice that they even gave you two copies of those games, though; that's pretty amazing.
Glad to hear this as my launch Wii is showing some black vertical streaking sometimes, and I believe that damage is heat damage to the gfx chip, just waiting for it to die sorta >.>
Nintendo makes me feel warm and fuzzy. The only thing they've done in the past that makes me sad is transferring the writing of Nintendo Power to the Future US people. Blah. Still, I have all my old NPs to reminisce with!
I would imagine it's an integrated graphics chip on the motherboard since it's not a very powerful machine.
I couldnt find an article about PS3 overheating that wasnt older than 2007, all of which citing the TGS incident, but they all seem to say the same thing, this being an excerpt from one:
"It has been experienced by many gamers that after prolonged gaming, sometimes 48 hours straight (more or less), playing various games on the PlayStation 3, there was no trouble to report. The fans continued to run quietly, there was warm air coming out of the back, it got hot as all consoles do, but not too hot, and no overheating trouble was noticed. The only problems were bleary eyes, backs and thumbs, and delirium due to a complete lack of sleep and video game overdose.
Finally, if you don't believe the lack of PlayStation 3 overheating problems, check out the gaming forums, you won't hear anything about PS3 on these issues."
Please take your obviously bias comments somewhere else.
I dropped a gba the old big one and cracked the screen three days after owning it. I called nintendo to ask if they could replace the screen and the lady was like oh my did you get it as a gift and I was like umm yeah it was my birthday present. Got a brand new one sent to me and didn't even have to send the old one back.
So is Nintendo a video game company that has excelent customer service? or a customer service company that happens to make video games?
It appears they are the second one.
When Nintendo was having their promotion giveway of the Legend of Zelda Gamecube discs. (The one with OoT, MM, Zelda 1+2 on it), Nintendo sent me one through the mail. 2 weeks went by, and I never received it.
I called them up, and they sent another one out no questions asked. Apparently the other one got held up in the mail, so I ended up with 2.
I was a bit astonished that they were so willing to replace it for me. I'll never forget. <3
Nintendo is a fantastic company. My son's Nintendo DS was starting to glitch out on him after about a year & a half (and several falls & drops). They paid to have us ship them the DS, and within a week they had sent him back a new DS as a replacement, no questions asked. He had put some stickers on his old DS, and they even took the time to peel them off as carefully as they could & included them in the package. They really know how to treat their customers, that was WAY above & beyond what we expected from them.
i've had similar experiences with nintendo in the past, including a wii that needed serviced. the big N is indeed a consumer-centric corporation. it is glad to see that they still exist... they will continue to get my hard-earned dollars so that i continue to chase some pink princess skirt in extreme futility. :P
I had a good experience with them too, My DS Lite just started doing random weird stuff (like shutting off during sleep mode). I sent it in and they sent me a replacement no questions asked because they couldn't duplicate the problem, the process was simple and easy.
About ten years ago I worked at Nintendo as a seasonal customer service rep for the holidays, and yeah, they are pretty much of the mantra "Customer First." So none of this surprises me.
My fondest memories are of handling the game play counseling calls. Those were always fun.
I must have been the only person to have had negative customer experiences with Nintendo then. My Wii started scratching disks starting with the then-new Metroid Prime disk. It took forever to get it fixed, and my pampered Wii came back scuffed and splattered with coffee and it still makes noise. It also took them a couple of attempts to figure out that they were supposed to take my returned MP disk and REPLACE it insead of send the fucker right back to me after waiting a week.
I have had similar customer service experiences with both Nintendo and Apple.
Your story is a pleasant read, but not surprising.
I'll ditto this thread. We've had a Wii for a year and a bit now. I have 3 kids between the ages of 8 and 4. They all play, and they chronically leave discs out to get scratched. When the Wii started giving us "unknown error" messages and the book said it was hardware, I brought it into the Vancouver depot. They gave it back a week later, and said they replaced the motherboard. Prompt, efficient.
Then the errors started happening again. I had the discs "cleaned" at Blockbuster, thinking if it was the discs, then that would fix it. Nope, same issue. I figured it had to be they didn't do a good job on the repair, so I brought it in again. They did more to fix it, replacing the hard drive, and transferring all the saved game information for us. Still no fix.
A third time, I brought it back to them, this time past the 1 yr warranty period, saying that it was still not fixed, and I thought it might be the disc reader. They accepted the repair, did it no charge. They changed that out (and unbeknownst to me my kids had left Mariokart in the drive), and gave us a brand new Mariokart game, without even telling me. I found out when I got home they had included the game. Turns out the disc was the problem - the new disc ran without a hitch.
So my kudos go to Nintendo as well. I'll never buy another brand of console, they've treated us so well.
Maybe it's just the japanese style of management but I too have had great experiences with Nintendo Support.
When I got my DS it had a dead pixel, one call and they emailed an express shipping label to send it in for screen replacement. The lady on the phone said they have a no dead pixel policy. Within a week I had a DS with no dead pixels. My friend got a PSP with 4 dead pixels and it was like pulling teeth for him to get the screen replaced, apparently sony had a 6+ dead pixel policy unless they were all in the middle of the screen.
When I stood in line for 14 hours to get my wii, it was DOA. The thing spit a gear out at me right when I turned it on. Called Nintendo, they overnight crossshipped me a new Wii with a label to ship the old one back. This is why I support this company with cold hard cash. Good games and great service.
I like my Xbox but damn if I didn't have some issues with that thing and Microsoft used to 2 day you a coffin before the 3 year red ring warranties now they just email you a ground label and make you find your own box.
When my xbox died after a year and a half, first it wasn't red ringing it was simply stuttering in all games. Getting the damn support guy to understand I didn't have a red ring problem was a test of my patience. When I got the it back from repair it would not play any games but feeding frenzy, all other games would lock up on load. Again a test in futility to get the guy to understand what the issue was. Overall it took me 3 and half weeks there to get a working xbox back.
Wow. I've been procrastinating calling them about my Wii sensor not working anymore, but maybe I shouldn't worry so much?
well of course its "above and beyond the 'call of duty'", the wii has 'call of duty:world at war' now.
@silver-bolt: It could also be; ram, memory controller, voltage regulators. Not a fun troubleshoot for an integrated set. Good call, Nintendo for just tearing the thing out.
I actually had exactly the same issue on my Wii, cropped up playing RE4 too (think it's a hard game on the video card). Called Nintendo, they took care of it in 4 days total, no charge, all with a smile. Fantastic service!
We had a Wii that was 2 months out of warranty. I called Nintendo and they said for $75.00 I could send it back and they would fix it for me. Turn around time was about 3 weeks. I asked about the fact that I was in Washington State (as is Nintendo) and he told me I could go drop it off, and wait for it to be fixed. I went to Nintendo the next day and dropped it off. They did fix it within an hour, and then only charged me $50.00 because it was so close to the end of tegh warranty. It was incredible. I have a new Wii and a new warranty.
Now....I have an XBox 360 that is acting up, we shall if Microsoft helps me in the same way.
@dmuth: Yeah! I don't have a Wii but I've long been a Game Boy customer and just bought a Nintendo DS for myself for Christmas.
My eleven year old son stepped on his beloved DS a week after Thanksgiving. This was his second one - the last one my husband and I agreed to buy after he lost the first one on vacation. I suggested he call Nintendo. The agent on the phone was great with him. She emailed the return label, took his payment info, and we packed up his shattered DS. She said it might take a few weeks for the repair and return. He was heartbroken thinking he would be without it for Christmas. We were all shocked when it arrived, fully repaired, in less than ten days.
They are awesome with all their customers, young and old, and they have made my son into a raving fan for life.
Glad to see Ninty still has great customer service, they replaced a fried motherboard on my N64, which was a Japanese model (I was living in the US when I sent it in for repair). No charge.
Gee. Great customer service. It still exists.
Amazing!