The award for outstanding service goes to…

· technology ·

A couple of days ago, my SliMP3 player stopped working. I tried to take it out of standby mode, but it just wouldn't turn on. I did everything I could think of to troubleshoot the problem, but even firmware updating process wouldn't complete correctly. Of course, my player was a few months over a year old, meaning that it was outside the guarantee period (why does that always happen?). I emailed Slimdevices with a heavy heart, thinking that it was going to be an expensive repair or replacement job. To my delight, once the support guys had established what the problem was (a corrupted firmware chip), they asked me if I would be prepared to open the back up and replace the chip myself — was I ever! And there would be no charge for the replacement chip.

As soon as I had sent them my address, I got a message that my chip was — at that very moment — winging it's way to me via UPS. Barely 36 hours later, the nice UPS man was knocking on my door. After a bit of fiddling with a screwdriver (during which I confirmed that my decision not to choose a career in brain surgery was probably the correct one), I'd switched the chips without too much collateral damage. I held my breath, crossed my fingers and switched on. It fired up perfectly - yay!

I really can't say enough nice things about the people at Slimdevices. Anyone who has ever bought any electrical or electronic devices will — I am sure — have come across obstructive, unhelpful, ill-informed and disorganised Product So-Called-Support Departments. And that's just if you're trying to return a faulty item within the guarantee period. It restores your faith in commerce to come across a company that treats its customers like friends.