Need Help with CUSTOMER RELATIONS

[Nathan H]

HI GUYS/GALS.

OK I made BIG mistake, usually only done by Newbies...

I have a customer, One who's very loyal and buts a lot of business my way.

I have her laptop, as she kept getting BSOD messages, turns out she had a virus, anyhow i formatted her drive and reinstalled her O/S

Halfway through the reinstalation, she phone up for a progress report, now for the mistake, i lied an told her it was sorted (as although the reinstalion wasn't complete it seened a simple enough task that we've all done hundreds of times)

any how few mins late i got a BSOD error (another dumb mistake coming up) I assumed it was a faulty recovery disk, I asked my wife who acts a secretary when im busy, to phone her and ask for her origanal recovery disk as the copy made from her software was not working,

Befor the wife phoned we had a power outage, so when ther power was restored my wife phoned and said we needed the disk to fix her laptop after the power outage.

The customer gladly supplied the disk, however it is looking like her MOBO may be faulty

See my dilema now....

I realise my mistakes.. but still how would you tell the customer her laptop is fit for the bin (If it is her MOBO and that the power outage had nothing to do with it)

Any advise is muchly appreciated

[Bryce W]

I too have been in a similar situation and its damn embarrassing when it happens. In an attempt to please the customer and tell them its done, you made a mistake. It happens.

Now I don't usually recommend a lie to cover another lie, but if tell the client this you are telling them what needs to be said and you can get away with your reputation intact:

"Our standard procedure is after we reinstall the operating system we run the computers for a few hours to test to see whether they are stable (fixed) before we return them to the customer. Your computer had been reformatted and seemed to be fine when you called. However, it later failed our quality tests. After further testing we determined that the motherboard is bad. To replace the motherboard for your particular model would be $XXX. However, new, more powerful laptops only cost $XX more. So it comes down to which way you want to go with this.."

[gunslinger]

Very good responce. I have actually done the same thing a few times. It could have been worse, You could have gave her the laptop back and after a day or so the BSOD come back.

[Nathan H]

Thanx for the advice Bryce.

I agree with not telling a lie to cover another, i initially thought tell her the truth she'll understand, but then a friend said he would say that he understood if i came clean, but then he would never trust me again...

I think ill try it your way and then at least my rep will still be intact...

thanks again for the reply your both life savers

[nonchalant]

Yea good suggestion Bryce :)

Ive been in this situation before too but recently made a 'rule' (after it happening a few times) that I dont call the customer until the PC is complete and sitting on the floor. Ive had to stop myself grabbing the phone a couple of times since and its paid off once already.

[Blues]

Don't make it a practice to lie but you can't let them know you made a mistake as they will think twice about using you a second time. Its best to exagerate or fabricate a method in which this would realisticly happen. I have not had to tell that tale but I knew that was the best way out before reading your post bryce..

[ftbendpc]

try a different memory stick :) see if bsod still occurs.

[Nathan H]

Hi, Thank you all for your input, Just to update you, and sorry for the delay.

I done what you said Bryce, so thanks again.

and Ftbendpc, you were right it wasn't her mobo it was faulty RAM, replaced that and away it went, thanks again