NOTE: not a sponsored blog post!
On November 16 at 8:41 in the morning I discovered that my
trusted life (battery) saver Mophie for iPhone had died. Mophie’s are awesome
as they easily double the lifespan of your iPhone battery, even at the “always
on” intense use I put my phone through in a day.
Sidebar 1: Apple should
be ashamed that my phone battery dies after lunch with the way I use the 4S. I
am sure I am a heavy, but not an atypical user, jockeying between email, calendar, internet,
iTunes, calls, Instagram, WhatsApp, maps, the occasional game and the like. If you build technology
capable of doing all that, the battery should be able to follow. Otherwise it
would be like building an electric car that needs 24 hours to re-charge when
you deplete the battery. You don’t always have time on a journey to park your
car for 24 hours when en route from A to B, right? I am just saying…
Anyway, Mophie allowed me to go through the day without
charging once, so I decided I needed to break the piggybank and buy a new one.
And I posted a picture of the dead Mophie and my piggybank to Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter.
Sidebar 2: I love
social media, but I am also lazy. Which is why I love Instagram and Foursquare
as they allow me to immediately serve my various different audiences across
many platforms. It seems that some of the social media platforms are figuring this out and are beginning to cross retaliate across platforms with exclusions.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn are all buying and building alliances, but at the
same time adding exclusions to each other. Twitter seems the most exclusionist of the lot to
date. All I can say to them is: “Don’t!”. Not just because I am lazy,
but because you are going to lose audience.
So, back to Mophie. Imagine my surprise when, at 12:30
that day Mophie Support spontaneously reached out to me via Twitter. I had not
linked them in my post, and had not posted to get a response. Heck, I didn't even follow them on Twitter nor had I "Liked" them on Facebook. But Mophie’s
social media monitoring clearly works, as does their Support team.
They tweeted that if my Mophie was less than a year old, it
might still be under warranty.
I didn’t see their outreach until that evening so I tweeted back that I had to check if I actually had the receipt because I was unsure about the
purchase date.
The next morning I found that the purchase had occurred less
than a year ago, but… I did not have the receipt anymore. I had the original packaging
and also found the payment at the AT&T store on my credit card statement.
So at 10:16 I reach out to Mophie Support via Twitter and at
1:34 that afternoon they replied by suggesting a call, which I made.
I speak to a very friendly Mophie Support phone jockey, and
he says the “evidence” I have in support of my purchase, along with Mophie’s
serial number is enough. Next they send
me a shipping label via email, and I put the dead Mophie in a padded envelope and
send it off.
And now we wait, but we are in awe and share our feelings
with the world:
So here is why this whole experience is awesome. First of
all because Mophie is clearly pro-actively listening. Secondly, because they
problem-solve real-time. Thirdly, because Mophie solved my problem, even when I
wasn’t even asking for it – I did not link Mophie in my initial post, just
merely shared my dependence on my Mophie and my need to replace it. And finally, because none of this could have
happened in a world without social media.
Obviously, PDS (pre-social-digital) I could have probably called
a 1-800 number or obviously could have sent a letter. Weeks if not months would
have passed. But now, in the time span of 3 days and a feeling of constant
direct contact and care, a problem has been solved, but even more importantly,
a brand reputation has been solidified beyond simple brand appreciation.
Ask yourself if your brand or company could pull this off? Do you have the listening, the customer support, the staff training and the logistics in place to proactively problem solve within a short period of time? And while doing so making brand friends for life?
I already loved my Mophie, the device. I now love Mophie, the company. And I am telling you about it. That is powerful stuff!
Update: new Mophie arrived in the mail, and so all is as it should be again in the universe. One charge overnight, and I am good to go for a day. Thank you Mophie!
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