Here is a happy story about the customer service folks. They get a lot of bad press, but these folks are really quite amazing.
I know that a lot of people like Popcap games. They are fun. Ridiculously fun. One of their more fun games is called Peggle. My whole family played it and they loved it.
A few days ago I noticed that they had a version of Peggle for iPhone. I though ‘finally, my 3 hand-writen letters a day produced something’. I checked the requirements and from what it said I could play it on the iPhone. I quicky clicked the Buy link in iTunes and plugged in my phone to sync.
Now, I was checking the apps and noticed something not sweet. The version was for the iPod (video and nano-video) but not for the iPhone or Touch. Go back to the app store page and in small print it said “Not compatible with iPhone/Touch”.
Begin short-lived temper tantrum.
I immediatley contacted Apple who in turn said “we do not offer charge reversals for mis-bought products”. So I contacted Popcap to inform them of the problem I now had. The requirements for their software were pretty clear in saying that it would run on the iPhone. Going back to the site I realized that it was a blanked statement for all of their mobile software.
So I sent their CSR gurus an email explaining the whole deal and asked them to please update their requirements boxes as I cant be the only person to make this mistake.
The got back to me the next day (surprisingly) and said they were sorry for Apples response, and offered me a coupon for their games. They also asked for my mailing address which was kinda weird.
I sent them my address and thanked them for the coupon and told them that I appreciate them changing their website. All is now right in the world.
Skip to the following Saturday. I return home to find a UPS note on my door. I go get my package and was again surprised as it was from Popcap. A smallish box with something soft inside is what I guessed from the vigorous shaking I did.
I open it up and was delighted by what was inside.
Lots of fun stuff
Inside was 5 cute Chuzzles, a stuffed Splork (a character from Peggle), bookmarks for their Bookworm Adventure game, some pens, a branded cap, and a set of Peggle character card.
Now, most would say that this wasn’t a great lot of stuff. But I say this is fucking fantastic! Not only are they neat little things (my kids loved the Chuzzles), but I was greatly heartened by the fact that someone cared about their customers to this extent that they put together a “customer love” box. I was seriously pondering graciously returning it with an appreciative note (the original charge was only $4.99 after all), but these things are neat (plus the cat already chewed on a chuzzle).
In short, a great deal of thanks to the customer service department (Dana in particular who wrote me the follow up) of Popcap Games. This is one of the few companies that really try to make its customers happy as best they can. I would say they soundly succeeded in this instance.
- Cheers
Update: Here are some images of my kids playing with the stuff. Not really relevant, but damn cute.