As you know, about three weeks ago, I took the Nokia N95 plunge and was as excited as my colleague, Amy Gahran, was. I feel in love with it - but the honeymoon is over ...
Amy Gahran, had a bad experience updating the firmware for her n95 purchased from Amazon. So, I took her advice to update the firmware. Well, Nokia's user support isn't the most intuitive. I felt like I was back in 1995. Amy was great and helped me by pointing me to the right resources. That was two weeks ago. My firmware was up to date, life was good.
Not so fast. I found another way to get the firmware version - and oh no, holy firmware versions batman, I had the same older version as Amy. Oh no, did that mean if I updated the firmware like Amy did that my beloved Nokia N95 would turn into an expensive, unresponsive brick?
I was tempted to simply pack up the phone and send it right back to Amazon. Instead, I registered the phone warranty and found the support phone numbers. I took a deep breath, dialed, and braced myself for an unpleasant technical and customer support experience. I actually called three times - the third time I decided to live broadcast it.
Bottom line - they claim that it won't brick if install the US version of the firmware and that phone is covered under warranty. I'm still afraid to update the firmware and wasn't going to - but now I'm getting some really strange performance issues that might well force me to update.
Amy Gahran wrote about my experience here, listened to the video, and offered some great advice if you are thinking about a N95 so you don't get screwed. Charlie Shick, from Nokia, left a constructive comment in that post.
Amy points to what Mobile Jones wrote about Charlie Shick and described him a “social media expert.” He runs the company’s blogger outreach program. Another blogger, N95 user, and commenter on Amy's posts - Jenifer Hanen referred to him in her comments.
Nokia has recently launched a new blog, Nokia Conversations. Amy points out that Mobile Jones reported that this blog will “highlight the developments inside the world’s largest device manufacturer, and new entrant into mobile content and services that the 60,000 employee company represents. Some of those 60K employees are also introduced along with their accomplishments and new products. Comments are welcomed.”
So, Amy was pretty pleased that maybe, maybe, Nokia was listening. She goes on to offer Nokia some excellent advice about how to improve their customer service and technical support. She left a comment on their blog letting them know about the conversation (hmm . don't they have a listening system in place?). No comments yet. I will look forward to watching this conversation develop - maybe I'll get some answers about my own technical issues with my N95.
Beth -- This morning I heard from Mark Squires, Nokia's Director of Corporate Communications, via a comment he left on Contentious.com. I continued the conversation (constructively) here:
http://snurl.com/25h1e
Bottom line: No substantive response from Nokia yet -- but engagement from Charlie and Mark is a start
Meanwhile, so far Nokia's Conversations Blog did publish my comment -- but Nokia hasn't responded to it over there either with a comment or a post. So far their blog offers no way for the community to start or suggest threads, just comment on the threads that Nokia starts.
Again, it's a start. We'll see what happens. They'll demonstrate whether their claimed commitment to conversation is more than lip service.
- Amy Gahran
Posted by: Amy Gahran | April 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM