I was helping my daughter with her computer. Buying a program on line and installing it. Everything seemed to go smoothly, that is until the program was installed and we wanted to try it out. We had to enter a code - and the code provided did not work. What a nuisance. Shut down, reinstall - still no access to the program. We tried this and we tried that till we no longer remembered what we had tried. I think you have all had that experience.
Last resort. We had to call Support. I dread calling these helplines - but what can you do. I had a cup of coffee and a cigarette to brace myself up and dialled the support number.
Press 1, if you want assistance in French, press 2, if you want ........ etc.
And after that I got through right away. But that wasn't the only surprise. A sympathetic female listened patiently to my description of the problem. She asked calmly in clear and perfect English about some further details. She was given remote access to my computer (after politely informing me about the implications of this). Then she explained what she was doing as she competently went through some settings and account statuses. It turned out, as I believe is usually the case, that I - i.e. the client - had not paid enough attention to the details and had tried to open an older, preinstalled and not-activated version of the same program.
The problem was soon solved and she offered to help with default settings for some of the programs. Great.
Even those of you who are not and has never been married know that to help others solve a problem all too often implies impatiently letting them know how stupid they are.
But not so this time. The whole session took place in a calm, professional and friendly atmosphere. I had the feeling she was genuinely interested in helping me solving my problem. She made my day. Competence counts.
I felt in a good mood. I decided - against my inner nature and guiding principles - to be nice to everybody (at least for the rest of the day and maybe the first part of tomorrow). "Moien!", I said to everybody when I was out bicycling in the afternoon. (Moien is Luxembourgian for It's a beautiful world, I love you, have a nice day!).
So Moien to all of you.
That's what happens when you come across friendly and competent people.
Microsoft rules! Long live big corporations.
NB! I hope they give her a big banker's bonus. Bill Gates would have done worse without people like her.