By Ingrid Daschner
Bluetooth, Android and Blackberry apps, instruction
DVDs – with features like these, there’s no two ways about it, I’ve got to have
this coffee machine! Plus, as the sales assistant kindly explained, for a
piece of high-tech wizardry like this, the price means it’s a ridiculous steal – made by a ‘prestigious
international manufacturer’ employing an ‘aggressive pricing policy’ to ease
its entry to the German market.
But within just a couple of hours of giving our new
acquisition pride of place in the Johnson King kitchen, doubts start to creep
in. A super-modern
coffee machine with twenty helpful programs for every possible variety of
caffeinated pleasure is one thing, but its apparent inability to produce
anything other than hot water is quite another.
A careful study of the DVD instructions leaves me none
the wiser. The multimedia
presentation is delivered by carefully chosen ‘eye candy’ of both genders, but
their main occupation is to look pretty, rather than telling me how this blasted machine (a Golaccia
Sellectione 2005Px if you’re interested) actually works! Hope is
rekindled when a service phone number flashes up on screen. I grab the
phone.
"Good morning! My name is Claire Miller. What can I help you with
today?”
“Hi, this is Ingrid Daschner. I’m calling about …”
“Hold on, I’ll put you through.”
"Good morning! My name is Mike Smith. What can I help you with
today?”
“Hi, this is Ingrid Daschner. I’m calling about …”
“Let me stop you there. Can you please give me your
customer number.”
“What customer number? I bought my Golaccia on Frida..."
"Ah, Golaccia. Hold on, I’ll put you through.”
"Good morning! My name is Flora Gonzales. What can I help you with
today?”
“As I said, I’m calling about my Golaccia Espressoma…”
“Let me stop you there. Can you please give me your
customer number.”
“As I told your colleague, I don’t have a customer
num…”
“Hold on, I’ll put you through.”
Some hours later, I put down the phone. I’ve called the
service hotline four times in the hope of getting hold of someone both
competent and friendly – alas, in vain. I have, however, learnt that my call is being diverted
to Ireland, but that it will still cost me just 12 Euro cents per minute. I’ve learnt
that the service provider places the customer ‘at the centre of everything we
do’. And I’ve been
reassured that the Sellectione 2005Px really is the very latest device – so
new, in fact, that neither Claire, Mike nor Flora on the helpdesk have had any
training from the manufacturer. But have I consulted the specially prepared multimedia
instruction manual…?
In view of all this I was particularly impressed that,
for a meeting the next day, my colleague Oliver success fully managed to
produce three steaming cups of frothy, aromatic coffee. That’s until I saw some empty sachets of ‘Instant
Cappuccino Premium’ disappear into his jacket pocket.
Photo credit: MiskiSanko
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