Not all storage issues require a complex solution. Sometimes, all that’s needed is a patient ear on the other end of a customer-support call.
Dick Lambert, a small business owner in Roseville, Minnesota, reached out to Seagate when his network-attached storage (NAS) system sent out an error message, saying it couldn’t complete a backup task.
Lambert didn’t know what to expect when he reached Seagate’s advanced network products (ANP) support team in Oklahoma City. But by the end of the call, he was impressed enough with his experience to leave a thank-you message with Chairman and CEO Steve Luczo.
“I’ve had reason to call tech support on a number of occasions,” Lambert said in a voicemail to Luczo’s office, “and I’ve never run into any tech support that comes close to offering the quality of care for customers that Seagate does. In this day and age, it seems like customer support is getting to be an expensive item that companies are doing away with.”
We talked through many potential causes, diagnostics and solutions
“Sometimes, all you have to do for a customer is provide a reassuring voice.” — Shawn Hartfield
Lambert, who owns a waste-removal group-buying service, uses a five-year-old Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 primarily for automated backup of his office’s PCs. (See Seagate’s newest NAS systems here.) Lambert’s great customer-support experience came from Shawn Hartfield, an engineering technician on the ANP team.
“I talked him through the process for logging into the administration page of his device,” Hartfield said. “I explained how he could run the hard drive diagnostics, check the firmware and other information.”
Hardware’s working fine. What could the issue be?
As it turned out, the hardware and firmware were both working fine. The issue stemmed from third-party backup software that Lambert had purchased and installed on his machine. The software didn’t recognize the NAS system for a moment and sent out an error message. Ultimately, the cure for the problem was to delete the backup task and rewrite it. After that, Lambert’s system was running smoothly once again.
Although Seagate’s support team didn’t have to do much to fix the issue, the simple fact that this customer had a receptive ear was more than enough.
Open, personal, and a willingness to listen and try to get to the root of the problem
“It wasn’t really Seagate’s problem, per se,” Lambert said in a follow-up interview, “but just that they had a willingness to listen and try to get to the root of the problem was what impressed me. They didn’t try to get me off the phone and hand me off to someone else. It was very open and personal.”
Seagate’s Hartfield said such calls are fairly typical.
“We look at everything on these calls—all the hardware and firmware, right down to the network connections and router,” he said. “Sometimes, all you have to do for a customer is provide a reassuring voice. What I did was what every member of our team does for any customer.”
Nothing special or unusual, perhaps, but for a small business owner who doesn’t have the budget to hire an in-house IT staff, that kind of support is huge.
“Price and storage capacity and all the speeds and feeds are great,” Lambert said, “but it’s not important if you don’t have the customer support to back it up. To me, that’s what makes Seagate stand out. And it’s why I won’t buy any other storage brand unless it’s Seagate.”
