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News
[Top] [News] [Customer
Service Matters] [Product
Review]
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
we will be enforcing our
Payment Policy.
If you receive
an overdue account notice you MUST contact us before the end of
the month or your account WILL be suspended. We regret having to
strictly enforce this policy but due to the number of overdue
accounts we are forced to do so! If your account is overdue,
please CALL US to make arrangements to bring your account
current. Details of our invoicing and payment policies have been
sent several times and are available upon request.
Customer Service Matters
Saturn of North Charleston, SC
[Top] [News] [Customer
Service Matters] [Product
Review]
In contrast with our last article we will be
sharing one of our BEST customer service experiences with you
this month. We are sharing this information from the perspective
of how to run a business, satisfy customers and thereby have
repeat business from satisfied customers.
During our efforts to purchase a new vehicle we
spoke with an acquaintance regarding the bad experiences we had at
both Hoover Dodge and Kia. She immediately asked us if we had
considered a Saturn as she currently leases a Saturn and couldn’t
say enough good about the vehicle and service provided. We had not
even considered a Saturn as Rick thought they were the ugliest cars
on the road and I hate square cars and wasn’t familiar with the
Saturn name. We decided to give them a shot and we’re so glad we
did!
We highly recommend Saturn of North Charleston to
anyone in the market for a new car!
From our first meeting with them we have been
impressed and delighted with their service. They listened to our
needs and concerns, were never pushy, and took as much time as
necessary to help us with our purchase. They didn’t over-hype or
push to make a sale, they were very matter of fact about their
vehicles and services. They mentioned that our expectations were
high but they would see what they could do to make us happy. There
was no haggling and more importantly there were no obvious
overcharges (compared with Kia where they were charging $1300 for
mudflaps and pinstripes).
After discussions with our salesman and sales
manager we were able to reach a fair deal for a brand new Saturn Vue.
However, due to our previous bad experiences with car purchases, we
requested the opportunity to take a Saturn Vue home overnight to
ensure our final decision so as to avoid buyers remorse (which we
had had on more than one occasion to date). We did not want to have
buyers remorse this time – especially since we were purchasing a new
vehicle rather than a second hand one. Not only did they graciously
allow us to take a Saturn Vue home for the night, it was a brand new
vehicle with less than 100 miles on it.
By the next morning we had decided it was
definitely something we were interested in purchasing so we went and
signed the paperwork.
Not only did we receive great customer service
during the purchase, but we have continued to receive outstanding
customer service since the purchase. Our experiences to date with
other car dealerships are quite the opposite. We have received
telephone calls to make sure we were happy with our purchase and to
find out whether we had any questions relating to our vehicle. We’ve
received surveys allowing us to answer very specific questions to
assist them in bettering customer service as well as allowing us to
voice concerns or comments. We have also received brochures with
lists of available additions to the vehicle.
We recently had our first scheduled maintenance
of our Saturn Vue. Rick took it in to the Saturn Service Center in
North Charleston. He was offered doughnuts, fruit and coffee while
he waited in their comfortable waiting room while watching
television and being able to browse through magazines. In our
opinion they went above and beyond the call of duty during this
visit, as they did the regular maintenance (ie oil change, chassy
lube etc) as well as washing and vacuuming the car so it felt like a
new car again when we got it back.
Maybe Rick and I are unique in the fact that we
maintain loyalty to a particular store, but we do. When we are
treated well, we remember it and highly recommend it to friends,
family and even our clients. When we are treated poorly, we remember
that too and are less likely to ever go back or refer others.
Saturn of North Charleston met and exceeded our
expectations with regard to Customer Service and we are therefore
pleased to recommend them to anyone in the market for a new vehicle! |
Product Review
HP Pavillion ZD7000
[Top] [News] [Customer
Service Matters] [Product
Review]
 First
of all I want to mention that this computer is not for the
frequent traveler. It was never HP’s intention for this computer
to compete with the new thin and light, highly mobile, Centrino
notebooks. Its purpose was to be a true desktop replacement that
could also be moved around fairly easily. I’m a web developer
and web marketer by profession. I’m also responsible for all the
bookkeeping and financial records for the company. The larger
keyboard complete with dedicated number pad was the biggest
selling point for me.
I use dual flat
panel displays on my primary development computer. I love the
wide screen notebooks as I can mimic the functionality of dual
displays on a single display. There is not quite enough room on
the 17” display to make everything fit, but it is definitely a
big improvement over the old standard format displays. If you
are a person who likes to run multiple applications
simultaneously, don’t settle for less. You will be glad you have
the 17” wide screen display. (DVD’s are awesome to watch on this
notebook!)
Performance is
better than expected. The 533Mhz front side bus and the
dedicated (not shared!) 64 megs of video ram that powers the
Nvidia GeForce4 440 Go video card, are big contributors to the
performance of this computer. Ask any gamer what video card they
like best. Nvidia will top the list 9 out of 10 times, although
ATI makes a respectable card as well. The point being that you
are not giving up ANYTHING when you choose this notebook. HP did
not skimp like some other manufacturers by using a cheesy,
underperforming, shared memory video system. This computer has
handled any business task that I’ve asked of it as well as any
games I’ve wanted to play. I ran PerformanceTest 4.0 and
received a PassMark Rating of 268.0 with 598.7 MegaFLOPS,
compared to the 247.7 and 601.3 rating from a similarly
configured Compaq Desktop with a 64 meg Nvidia video card. I
want to say once again, nice job to HP for getting this one
right.
Other reasons
that this is a great notebook:
-
4 USB 2.0
ports, not 2.. not 3.. 4 PORTS. Who needs a USB hub when you
have 4 ports. The FireWire port is also nice, and necessary
if you do any digital video work.
-
Built in
54g wireless. I have a wireless network installed at my
house and several of my clients. Having the card built-in is
a great convenience. Also HP has a button at the top of this
notebook to activate or deactivate the wireless interface.
This is an important feature when you are back at your
primary office and want to make sure that you are only using
the wired network connection as it is much faster than
wireless.
-
Built-in
Media Reader. This is a new feature for me and until now I
had not realized just how convenient it is. This card reader
allows you to read 4 different types of card media without
any cables or software. Most recently while at a clients
location I was able to take dozens of photographs and
immediately display them to my client without having to
first hook up the computer and download them to the
computer. A side benefit is it conserves battery life on
your digital camera.
In conclusion,
this computer has exceeded my expectations, with the following
prerequisites. First, I knew it was going to be heavy and did
not expect it to be easy to carry around and second, I knew,
from reading reviews, not to expect stellar battery life. To my
surprise, I can reasonably get about 2 hours of heavy use from
the battery. Because of the large size of this notebook I had to
buy a new case and it still barely fit. I’ve also found that
even though it is fairly heavy I still take it to nearly every
appointment. From a business perspective, it is worth the
backache and arm pain to see the shock from my clients when I
open this thing up. So if your old desktop is about to go,
consider this notebook from HP. You won’t be disappointed. |
