Leopard

Sonos Solves Leopard Issues and Delivers a Great Customer Experience

I’m a huge fan of the Sonos music system. As posted a few weeks ago I was unable to get it to work with Mac OS Leopard. In that post I called for Sonos to develop a new version of their desktop controller software that would be compatible with Leopard. They actually did that in short order, posting a new download on November 20th.

I installed that download but still couldn’t get it to work, so I called their tech support. The customer experience was excellent. First their IVR phone system told me where I was in the cue and gave me a choice of what I could do next. I could either wait, or elect to have them call me back when it was my turn. This is really great. When I selected that option it read my phone number back to me to ensure it was correct. This made me, the customer, feel as if they know who I am.

In less than 5 minutes a call came in. They were not able to fix it in that session, but kept the ticket open. Two days later they sent me an e-mail asking me to call back to speak to a tier 3 support person. That guy was busy, but Matt, a tier 1, wanted to try something, so I let him. In less than 15 minutes he fixed the problem.

Thanks Sonos. I am enjoying music throughout my house again.

Did Leopard Kill My Hard Drive?

Early on in my computer life I was told by a friend to back up my data in preparation for the inevitable day when my hard drive would fail. “All hard drives fail,” he used to say. I’ve been using computers since 1986 and have never had a hard drive fail. Well last week it finally happened. Oddly enough it was only a week after I installed the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system Leopard. Was this coincidence? My Mac G5 would not boot to my hard drive. A sinking feeling came over me. Quickly I called the Apple help line. First level support at Apple tried a number of things and couldn’t help, so they transferred me to the next tier. In second level land, a young man named Michael was really patient. He walked me through lots of procedures and then concluded that it was most likely a hardware failure and asked me if there was an Apple store with a Genius Bar close by. There fortunately is one about 5 miles away, so I packed up my very heavy G5 and went in. John the genius in the Northbrook Court Apple store came to the dead hard drive conclusion in less than 5 minutes. He offered to handle the problem for me, but said that I could easily take care of it myself more quickly (they didn’t have a hard drive in stock) and much more cheaply. They helped me back out to my car (pouring down rain) and I went to Best Buy where I bought a new Serial ATA hard drive for $160.00.

Less that 3 hours later I had the new drive in, formatted and OSX Leopard loaded on. So how I’m sure you are asking. Did I have my data backed up? Well of course. I’m back in business, all up to speed the next day.

My experience with Apple was really great. I spoke with only American based tech support. They were polite, gave me their direct dial number and called me back within 5 minutes of getting a voice message from me. Felt so supported all along the way. And the Genius Bar experience was also fantastic. From the online booking process to the hands on one-to-one support, and it was all free to me. My G3 is four years old and no longer under warranty, but I was treated as if my machine was only one day old.

But I’m still a bit unsure if the upgrade caused the problem. Guess I’ll never really know.

Sonos Needs to Code for Leopard NOW!

About a year and a half ago I purchased the Sonos music system directly from them online. It has been a great experience, up until now. Sonos is a system that can access your iTunes music library on your computer and broadcast it to small receivers located throughout your house. Those boxes can then be connected to amplifiers to play your music collection anywhere you wish, within range. You can also get very cool hand held controller that allows you to select different songs or play lists for each box, or link them for a house wide party. The user interface is outstanding. I upgraded my Mac (you saw that story a few posts ago) and now I can’t get my Sonos to work on the new operating system. Big, fat bummer. Did all the workarounds listed on their support site, and even spoke with their tech team. No dice. Sonos, are you reading this? Throw those resources at this problem and solve it as soon as possible. I need my music!