Support shoutouts!

Always nice when you get great service when something goes wrong!

Its always good to have a separation between the service the support agent is offering you vs the products they are supporting!

First up is Yale UK. I went to get my kids bike trailer out of our bike shed. The weather proof lock I got for it 11 months ago took a lot of WD40 and teasing to get open without snapping the key. The barrel didn't look like it would stand another winter outdoors as it was grinding pretty badly inside still. One detailed email with invoices and pictures and the rep had one response for me with a replacement being sent out. Amazing. I should add that the crucial bit to no back and forth was having all the detail in my initial outreach! It made everything so smooth.

Next up is Arlo. Now I still have gripes with the App itself as I think it makes things really confusing in terms of "arming" floodlight cameras vs the motion detection. Motion detection is provided either via hardwire wired power or when you pay for a subscription (with some additional AI stuff thrown in). Somehow I'd "disarmed" the devices without realising (or a user with guest access in the family). This in turn with a new message in the UI around motion detection requiring AC power without a sub, lead me to think that Arlo had restricted features in an effort to push more users onto subs. Having purchased a smart hub to record to locally, I was not impressed and called support. The Agent listened to the issue, investigated with me on hold for a few mins and then took me through some steps. When e realised it was the "arming" of the system through his good descriptions of the process being followed. I gave them my thanks, a bit of feedback on the terminology and why it was confusing to me as a user. We then ended on a cheerful note and I made a point to make sure that agent got great feedback in the aftercare survey!

Its smooth interactions like these that really make me appreciate certain vendors.