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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