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14 Nov 2007

A tale of unbelievable customer service by Nintendo Japan

filed under: journal  :: japanese culture  :: nintendo

This Japanese blog post ran across the virtual desktop of my life today. (It was on the del.icio.us/popular list.) It tells a tale of unbelievable service by Nintendo. Here's a rough and somewhat abbreviated translation:

I (the author) have two Nintendo DSes. One belongs to my wife, who won it in a contest. The other was a birthday present for one of the kids.

The wife's DS broke, because one of the kids dropped it, breaking the hinge where it folds over. [Translation note: I don't have a DS so I hope that's an accurate translation.]

My wife never used her DS that much, and we still had the other DS, but [coincidentally] Kid No. 1's DS also broke, because (his sibling) Kid No. 2 did a body slam on it.

So, we decided to send them into Nintendo for repairs together. We went to the Returns page on the Nintendo site, and we received the returns box. We put the two DSes in and sent it back for repairs.

For some reason, the wife's DS came back first on its own. Incidentally, it came with a note saying 'Normally we would charge you for this repair, but we will charge you 0 (yen).' It was a replacement [not a repair].

We were wondering why the kid's DS was delayed, and then we received it today...

It was a replacement, and had the same note as the other one ('Normally we would charge you for this repair, but we will charge you 0 (yen). [Please note] the different serial number.') However...

The Pokemon stickers that Kid No. 1 stuck on it, are there .

The teeth marks where Kid No. 2 bit a sticker are not there.

The only thing I can think [that makes sense], is that someone cleanly took off the stickers [from the old machine], and re-stuck them on [the new machine].

Nintendo is awesome. Their company name [Ninten] is said to come from from ten ni makaseru (leave it to Heaven), turned upside down. They seem to be determined to do everything up to the leave it to Heaven part themselves.

There are numerous legends about Nintendo, but I got to experience one for real.

There's a photo of the presumably new Nintendo DS in the original entry.

Comments on this post:

That's really something,

That's really something, especially considering their competitor in Redmond had to extend their warranty to 3 years because their product was shipping with the red ring problem that has affected millions. I commend Nintendo here.

Wow, this is something that I

Wow, this is something that I never heard before, it's incredible. I guess not all customer services are that bad. It's getting harder and harder to keep your customers satisfied these days because we become more sophisticated in making our choices.
George at Answering Services

Shows how Nintendo will take

Shows how Nintendo will take care of their customers. Not a lot of companies do the same.

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