I recently tried updating my computer’s hardware (the keyword being “tried”) by replacing the graphics card – the part that affects game and graphics performance the most on modern systems and will make running Windows Vista bearable. With the amount of games I play, I figured this was a good visual investment (although it’s a terrible monetary one, graphics cards depreciate even faster than other computer parts).
As it turned out, the card I picked (the nVidia 7900GT) was a dud; people have been complaining about failures for a few weeks now, and chalk it up to my lack of extensive research that I went ahead and bought a card known to have issues anyway. I will say that it looked real nice for the week I had it.
But what I wanted to jot down wasn’t how nVidia won’t admit to problems with their cards, it’s how good some company’s customer service can be. I had made the purchase from Newegg (I had never had to return something from them before), and from my previous experience with the online retailer buy.com, I was expecting some hard work and argumentation on my part to get an acceptable return.
Fortunately, they are one of the few retailers that understand the idea of treating customers well for repeat business. The RMA I filed had them charging me a $50 (!) restocking fee, but a phone call explaining how the card is known to be faulty cleared that up and cancelled that charge. Another phone call asking about the shipping charges back got me a $10 shipping credit for a defective card, which means that this entire ordeal, if it goes through smoothly, only cost me $8 in initial shipping and a week of twiddling with my hardware and game “testing”.
I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that a good online retailer measuring stick is their returns policy and service. A site can be really fancy, sell lots of rare items at discounted prices, and can offer a variety of promotions; but a true test of the site’s value and its ability to attract and retain customers is how it handles something as unpleasant as returned merchandise. It’s very easy to not care about RMA’s – customers are likely to blame the store as much as the manufacturer for their problematic item, it costs the store some overhead to deal with your RMA, the store has to credit you back any profit they might have made and try to sell a used, open item – but impressing the customer here really makes an impact. I knew Newegg was good, but they really raised the bar for everybody else. And these guys have only been in the business for 5 years.
Now I’m looking for another card….