All tied up

My day actually started off with a left over from last night. Little did I know that it was going to happen this way.

It all began when for some reason (step in technical email server answer person to explain this to me) I managed to spam myself. That's correct - I sent out a couple of emails, cc'd myself on them so I'd have a record. At the point when I made the call to tech support for my email, I was downloading a new copy of the email(s) every 3 minutes, for a total of 30 emails. Someone had to make it stop.

I'd tried everything within my scope. I was headed to my webmail to see if I could gain access to the mail server. (let me clarify, the spam email was through my personal email, no one in-house could help me To log into my webmail, I would need my email password.... yeah right. After I tried multiple combinations, aka guesses, I gave up and called my ISP.

I think they were a bit baffled too, but made a couple of suggestions on how to fix it. #1 reset the password so that I could have access and #2 purge the email accounts. I could see no other solution - so we did both. What I was not told was a change in password would mean that I would not be able to log on to my network.

I worked away for another couple of hours, without problems and with the spam email stopped. I shut down and called it a night. Happy of course that I had done something to solve my IT problem.

Little did I know. This morning I went to check email and launch a browser...nothing. I waited until I knew someone would be answering the phones in support at my ISP and called. Lucky for me, I ended up with 'Gary'. Little did Gary know that he would end up with me at 7:30am.

The connections were checked and sure enough I had signal into my tower (Oh, I neglected to mention, my ISP is 'Storm Internet' - we are outside of any major area so we utilize high-speed wireless) and it should be working. Then I mentioned my problems of the night before.

Gary had the solution, 'did you change your password in you router?' Of course I didn't, the chap the night before didn't tell me I would need to do that. I was informed that I would have to do that first and then everything would work. My next question, you got it - How?

Now let me start by saying Storm Internet does not 'do' routers. They provide me with signal, what I do with it and how I split it up is my doing. Gary however, was willing to help. You see, I could not remember the password for the router either.

45 minutes later, Gary had me connected again. (I've now written my password down in three different locations, perhaps though, I should write down the locations of the passwords as I'm likely to forget if I ever need them again) I did have to call him back one more time to fix a small bug with one of my email accounts, but that took nano seconds in comparison

The point of all this. Gary and Storm Internet did not have to help me out with the router password. However, by doing so, they helped to get me back online. I am therefore eternally grateful and very, very happy. So much so that I'm sharing my story with you now.

Had Gary and Storm Internet towed the line and sent me on my way to figure out things on my own, I wouldn't be writing this now. When I did get back online though, you can bet that I would have a scathing report to share with you.

Bottom line - what did it cost my ISP to help me out? It's not as if I call for support often, once every 6 months, maybe. What does it cost services, stores etc. when they won't help out or at least attempt to share some knowledge?

Here's the numbers. On average, if a person has a favorable experience, they are likely to tell one other person (now some folks like me like to share), but, if a person has a frustrating or bad experience, they are likely to tell ten (10) people. In this case, that is a very bad thing!

Advertising is expensive and can be hit and miss, with a undetermined ROI. Word of mouth, referral and buzz marketing however, costs very little and has a tremendous return on investment.

Now, I'd like someone to tell me why 'retail' doesn't get this.

So to Gary - tech guy at Storm Internet - Kudos to you. I sincerely appreciate your help.


Have a wonderful day. As always, feel free to share you thoughts, finds, reviews, kudos and gripes with all of us.