I Don't Typically Use the Blog for This

And by typically, I mean I never have used the blog for what I'm about to write.  Since you probably come here to read about baseball cards and/or baseball, I'll keep it as short as possible, though I think we can all relate.

Customer service.

Some experiences exceptionally good, some experiences exceptionally bad, but most somewhere in between.  It seems we tend to remember the bad experiences more than the good, but that is just human nature.

So I have an iPad, I use it everyday for work and also at night to watch Phillies and other baseball games on mlb.tv.  Though I have a Smart Cover that doubles as a stand of sorts, it is still not very sturdy, and my cat likes to knock it over with his paw.  Something about me not paying attention to him and instead watching baseball.  I've been meaning to get a new stand, something more sturdy, but just haven't gotten around to it.  That's where Woot comes in.

If you're not familiar with it, www.woot.com is a site that does "a deal a day."  One day it might be a refurbished Dyson vacuum, the next it might be a new high megapixel calendar.  Not all high end stuff, but mostly stuff that people find useful to help simplify life.  I check the site once a day just to see what's there, and a few weeks ago I found it.

The Bean Pad!

The Bean Pad is an iPad holder with a small bean bag attached. It is movable so you can view the iPad from any angle.  It was $14.99 on woot.com so it was a no brainer. Especially since it normally retails for $60.

So it arrived, and I took it out of the box, and something was odd. One of the corners had completely snapped off and was in the bottom of the box it came in.  Crap.

(I INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO CONGRATULATE JOHAN SANTANA ON THE FIRST NO HITTER EVER IN METS HISTORY) 


I was thinking I would just glue it, but no.  I decided to go to Woot to see what to do about a return.  Go to the manufacturer, they said.  Their involvement ends with the sale.

The company that manufactures the Bean Pad is called Vantage Point.  They make many items to mount tvs, speakers, etc.

Ok this story is getting really long.  I went to the contact form, emailed them explaining my issue, and within a day I received a message back from a real live person, asking me for a picture of the broken item, and saying that it would be no problem to replace it.

That's it.  Not, return it to us and then we will send you another, not, we don't do that, nothing except making the experience great for me, the customer.  The customer service guy named John emailed me a FedEx tracking number and the brand new, unbroken Bean Pad arrived yesterday.  I am using it right now.

In a world where so much is negative, I just wanted to share a positive.  And I highly recommend the Bean Pad.  Want one?  When the new one arrived they send me a 30% off anything on their site code.  Shoot me an email and I will give it to you.

Thanks for the breath of fresh air, Vantage Point!