Surprisingly impressed with Orange

So last night I had an encounter that brougt me back to the UK and it made me think perhaps going back there won't be such a bad thing and instead of dreading the day I actually have to get on that plane to England, I can happily sit in on a 12 hour journey and look forward to be back in my home comforts, thank you John@Orange, he completely de-stressed me from my troubles yesterday and made my day with his tongue in cheek type of humour.

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So, I was browsing on the Orange website (a UK phone operating network) looking at phones until a random pop up asks me if I needed any help and that I could speak to an advisor, 'click to chat with an advisor'. I thought "cool let's see what this is" and clicked on the pop up window (after all I remembered my Prof, Michael Netzley, telling us not to be afraid to click around on the internet and explore). After about 30 seconds, John@Orange enters the chat and in a predictable manner asks how he could help me. It starts off kind of slow and mundane as I ask about features of the Sony Erricsson W705 such as HDPSA and EDGE because I had never heard of them before. Coming across as a complete girly girl who knows nothing about technology I probably asked some of the most stupid questions but he dealt with them in a professional manner and with great "patience and forebearance" (as he said in his own words when i asked him how he handles annoying customers).

I could imagine him thinking I'm just really stupid, so I tried to humour him back with sarcastic jabs at his selling techniques. He did recommend some pretty decent phones though and respect to him for putting up with my stupid questions about transmitters and internet connections. He soon took me seriously though after he suggested the LG Renoir to me and I said it's not a good phone because it focuses too much on the camera and video function so compromises on the main function of the phone, which is to talk to people (battery talk time is only around 3 hours). Then his whole tone changed and he was surprised at my comment, then he suggested the HTC Touch HD =). See, all you have to do with Sales people is know enough about the product to surprise them.

All in all, it was a rather amusing conversation, not only was he honest but I have a habit of psycho analaysing the way people behave and he made me wonder if he would have said half the things he said to me if it was face to face sales? He definitely lightened up my day though and apparently I made his day too haha. It's weird how you can sense other people's personalities through text, and I guess John@Orange is pretty good at what he does if he's able to project a personlity behind the screen and still manage to keep the customer happy and remain professional.

Orange has been using online chat services since June last year, it's definitely a great way to communicate with your customers by using today's technology. This was one of those moments where I actually understood how the things I've been learning in Digital Media apply to real life, and it's very rare that I make connections between theory and practice, which is worrying, but the point is I noticed the connection here haha =)

I still haven't chosen a phone that I want though, but John@Orange (who was actually in Scotland) did let me know that there's a new Samsung Ultra Touch S8300 that'll be on the shelves soon and the specs don't look too bad.

Hopefully when I ring up Orange about my current situation with my contract, they'll be just as nice.