“While moving to our new house last week a friend who was helping us accidentally spilt beer on my son’s DS lite and it stopped working. I knew that his DS was still under warranty, but I also knew that I would not cover physical damage caused by neglect. After checking Nintendo’s website, and confirming that spilling liquid on it would not be covered and that I would have to pay for the repair.”

Well if you have a child (mine is 4) you know having a portable gaming system can make things like Doctor visits and trips to the DMV a lot less fidgety, so I called up Nintendo with Visa in hand ready to shell out at least 80 or 90 dollars. After being on hold for all of 20 seconds a very nice gentleman answered, and asked why I was calling. I explained that my son’s DS would not power on and before I could go any further he asked me to provide me with the serial number and after looking up my information (I register all my Nintendo products online) he told me that they would be sending me a replacement DS and all I had to do was ship the old one back to them, they even provided a shipping label. Already happy beyond belief I was even more surprised when they sent it 2 day UPS air!!!! GO NINTENDO! I have had returned my Xbox 360 7 times for repair and never received treatment anywhere near that nice.

Nintendo went out of its way to keep reader Mike happy. Sure, Nintendo could have claimed that the sloshed Nintendo was abused and neglected – but rather than prate about rules and warranties, Nintendo treated their customer with compassion and empathy. That is how you earn loyalty.

(Photo: mightynine)

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