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Joystiq presents

Complain to Nintendo, get a phone call

Reader Neal is a man on a mission. When hearing that Chibi Robo: Park Patrol was a Wal-Mart exclusive, he got on his computer and fired off an email to Nintendo questioning Wal-Mart's commitment as a "green company" and Nintendo's press release stating as much. Well, Nintendo cared enough about his email that a Nintendo rep actually called him to discuss it.

The Nintendo rep, one Ryan Stoffel, turned out to be a polite guy and very concerned with Neal's thoughts. While his promise to pass along Neal's concerns to the higher-ups can be seen as empty, the fact that Nintendo called him up directly to talk is just astounding to us. Even with some of you informing us of your own dealings with Nintendo customer service, we're surprised they went this far.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Croove551

10-16-2007 @ 11:59PM

Croove55 said...

Damn good show, Stoffel. I offer you one non-sarcastic golf clap.

Reply

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Don2

10-17-2007 @ 1:16AM

Don said...

I'm lucky enough not to have a problem with my recently purchased Nintendo products (Brain Age 2 DS & Wii) but my dealings with Nintendo have been very good. They sent me out the promo items and replacement Wii straps quickly, and I've bought stuff from the online store that has also been a positive experience.

Just the little things, like game cases being available from them. It would be unheard of if another gaming console company (let's say it rhymes with "Pony") were to actually offer replacement UMD boxes for sale. And despite many email confirmations, they've never sent me any promo items I've signed up for.

I really like the way Nintendo has been treating me so far.

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strider3

10-17-2007 @ 1:57AM

strider said...

I had my own "wow" experience with Nintendo. I called the 800 number in the Nintendo Power magazine to order a subscription along with a game guide. After dialing, but before speaking to anyone, I noticed I could place my order on-line so I hung up. Over the next two weeks I received: 1) at least two messages on my home answering machine from Nintendo asking if they could help (caller ID?!) 2) an e-mail at the address I registered my product with also repeating an offer to help (cross-referencing phone and customer records to find my e-mail?!?! 3) I finally received a customer satifaction survey card in snail mail asking again for feedback (hey, let's go all the way, we have his mailing address too, so why not!?!?!?!).

I completed the survey using polite but stern words about how if I wanted or needed help I would've responded to the previous attempts to contact me and how frankly their ever deeper violations of my privacy were "frankly, creeping me out." I left them with a dare of sorts to contact me to discuss that... the magazine subscription be damned.

Within a week I received a call from Joel. When I answered the phone he identified himself and saying, "I hope I'm not creeping you out." I felt an odd mix of irritation and humor, but Joel's genuine interest in my satisfaction and generally disarming approach kept me on the line.

We wound up talking for nearly an hour. I told him how I appreciated Nintendo's persistence but after I didn't respond to the first couple of messages, they should have called it a day. He countered that their clientel are usually not so tech savvy and are often uncertain about their products and how to use them. They'd rather take the chance of pissing off a tech savvy customer (my words) like me than to leave a single mom with three whining kids unsupported and frustrated with their purchase of a Nintendo product.

He said he understood my concerns and agreed to bring my views back to his support management. He gave me a free subscription and game guide for my troubles. He helped me with my kids' new Pokemon Diamond and Pearl games and even extended an offer to stop by the next time I'm in the Seattle area (I've got in-laws there!).

He was the perfect person to speak to me and in fact he said his job is specifically to deal with customers that complain to Nintendo. I suspect it must be a hard job to do, but my experience was that he does it well. He definitely cemented my loyalty to Nintendo.

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HellsHammer4

10-17-2007 @ 3:43AM

HellsHammer said...

I've dealt with Nintendo's reps a number of times.
They are always amazing and friendly.

I appreciate it quite a bit because when I had an lens issue with my XBOX, a Microsoft rep. just about told me to go F**K myself.

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Kam5

10-17-2007 @ 5:58AM

Kam said...

That's strange, because I call their repair service when my pokemon game was saving incorrectly (no foul play or anything). They told me they'd call me back. And lets put it this way: I still have yet to receive a phone call, and my game is sill saving incorrectly. it's been months.

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Hirsbrunner6

10-17-2007 @ 10:59AM

Hirsbrunner said...

I have yet to come across a company's customer service, be it videogames or anything else, that even remotely comes close to the quality of NoA's.

Each time I've dealt with them has been an extremely pleasant, productive, and satisfying experience.

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flameofdoom6667

10-17-2007 @ 11:21AM

flameofdoom666 said...

I want a free subscription to Nintendo Power like strider... damn :-(

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JohnathanEnder8

10-17-2007 @ 3:12PM

JohnathanEnder said...

I work in customer service, and we're always told to politely and curteously give call backs to emails. We're not as big as Nintendo, and we rarely get to call back someone on-time. The fact that Nintendo would actually go out of its way to answer a person's inquiry is really worth noticing.

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Goldilocks9

10-17-2007 @ 4:58PM

Goldilocks said...

How nice. I've not yet had the pleasure to deal with NoA, but I'd love to work for them.

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Seph-kun10

10-17-2007 @ 6:06PM

Seph-kun said...

I've had a similar experience as Strider, but I never got cool stuff from it...I DID talk to the rep. for almost 2 hours though. It was really fun.

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Sonic_1311

10-17-2007 @ 10:00PM

Sonic_13 said...

I have dealt with Nintendo several times (such as setting up subscriptions and twice about my My Nintendo Account).

Each time they were very nice and helpful. It was a great customer service experience.

One time I was calling Nintendo about a subscription, but then had to hang up to do something. They called me back wanting to make sure I wasn't having any problems with Nintendo products. It was great!

Thanks Nintendo!

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