The Repair Pixies

Customers have very little idea of what a phone repair centre is like. This is probably for the best in some ways, really.

Some customers don't seem to realize there are repairs at all: "Broken cheap and easily replaced part, please replace phone." I've even seen a returned phone that the customer claimed we had replaced; turned out we'd just changed the sub pba on it.

Some customers seem to think there are idiot monkeys doing the repairs; "callers can't hear the customer, this is a microphone fault, please replace it". Scammers often seem to fall into this category - and we do get attempts to scam the system.

Some customers seem to think we're a bit more like Santa's workshop; "This one time on a trip to Sweden, the phone turned off by itself while it was loose in my purse. Please make everything better."; and "If phone is replaced, may I have white instead of black, and also can you save my apps?"

Some customers assume we don't check anything (hello, scammers), or don't check much; "My app is slow and I sent the phone in before and it was sent back with no problems found so I'm sending it again please check the hardware". Other customers seem to think we can find the reason their phone signal gets low every five-six days.

The truth is, we average 15 minutes per phone and we've seen most of the issues that come in before; I diagnose some phones in the first 10 seconds. However, there could always be a second fault, or an error - every single phone gets tested, opened up to check the hardware, flashed with new software, run through an RF testing process, and then tested again by QA. Every. Single. Phone. The photos of your family you've set as wallpaper become part of a forgettable series - I won't remember what they looked like within a minute of completing your phone. But I'm not letting that phone go until I'm sure it works, either.

No, we don't have a space-age Santa's workshop with magical pixies repairing your phones. The magical pixies are all on the HTC line; there's nobody here but us fairy princesses.

Ticket(s) of the Day

Today we have a tossup for Ticket of the Day between two customers.

First is the customer who informed me that the on and off switch on
the side of the phone wasn't working so they had to pull the battery
out. This is, in itself, not a bad problem description.

Unfortunately, on that model of phone, the power key is on the front.
Only the camera and lock keys are on the side of the phone. I don't
know what this customer is doing with their phone and I'm pretty sure
neither do they.

Second is a ticket I had to actually bring home with me:

"Fault Description: slow, disrupted connection to network and wifi,
when compared to exact same model. sms app mixes up when contacts
arrive, this means texts turn up everywhere. runs hot. opening apps
still stutters and does not run smoothly again in comparison to other
gs1."

a) so get another frickin' gs1 and leave me alone;
b) not sure whether this is a trouble ticket or a review;
c) on testing, No Fault Found - and the first thing I tested is
whether you hacked the phone software, 'cause you sound like the type.

And as a runner-up, we have the epic saga of Can't Send Texts. I get
this phone and see it comes up as a 30-day bouncer; we've seen it
before. So I hastily check the repair history, and the saga unfolds:
Can't Send Texts sends the phone in with exactly that problem. It is
sent back with a software update, which means we didn't find anything
wrong with it. It comes back to us a second time, same fault. This
time, we return it as No Fault Found. But! It comes back to us a third
time, same fault! This time, we send it back with new screws. And
then... then it comes back to us, same fault, a fourth time - and
lands on my desk. Joy! IT'S YOUR SIM CARD, BUDDY. But to cover my
arse, I send the stupid thing through calibration testing, wiltek
testing, you name it, we tested it: logged as No Fault Found.