hobbies

Great Customer Service… a Dying Act?

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It’s been a whirlwind the last few months.  New job, new hobbies, less time. I figure I write something about a good experience I recently had. I was in the market for a new pair of gloves for go kart racing.  A comfortable pair is very important to me.  Any pair of any type of gloves just won’t cut it.  Sorry, no garden gloves for me. Having something comfortable that fits my needs and purpose made lessens the distractions while on the track.  Few key things that I look for in its comfort is are:

  • Does it fit well?
  • Do the finger tips dig into your finger nails?
  • Are they too tight? Too loose?
  • Easy to put on and remove?
  • Provide good grip on all steering wheel materials?

After digging through several different brands and styles, I chose a pair of Alpinestars Tech 1-K Race Gloves.  They easily met all my needs and the price point was right. Immediately used them at the next event I was able to attend and couldn’t be happier. Fast forward a few months later, the gloves had only around 40 minutes of total use.  I got a call from some friends to do a indoor go kart race at a local indoor track.  A 3 hour endurance race in teams of 3.  Couldn’t turn it down so I committed and participated.  After a rigorous drive and a good finish, I noticed something dangling on from my gloves.  The tacky material on the palms of my rather new gloves had come off.  I couldn’t believe it since they were still quite new.

I call up Alpinestars customer service the next day.  My expectation was that I would get your typical run around and investigation needed into how I used my gloves before they could do anything about it.  Not so.  4 minutes into the call, I was speaking with a rep and an RMA number + shipping instructions was immediately given to me.  The following day, they were in a bag on its way to Southern California.  Once again, I expected this to take several weeks to process before I hear anything back.  I was wrong.

Three days later, a kind gentleman rang my phone, notifying me that they have received my damaged gloves.  To make the story short, they did not have any Tech 1-K gloves in stock and apologized for the inconvenience.  To make things right, they decided to send me a brand new pair of a Tech 1-ZX Gloves as a replacement instead so that I do not have to wait for the same model to come in stock.  I couldn’t be happier.  Within 10 days, I had a new pair of gloves sent back to me, minimal questions asked.

So the answer is simply, no.  Good customer service is definitely not going away. We always hear the horror stories from your friends and family about how they were on hold for 30 minutes, got the run around, and nothing was actually solved.  There are companies out there that provide this great service, and it does show that these companies do care about their customers.  Alpinestars gave me that service level I didn’t expect, and only hoped for.  No doubt that this will make me a repeat customer.

Arduino Project

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I recently had a discussion with my friend Brian Ghidinelli.  We were discussing several different projects that would be fun to work on not limited to anything related specifically to software, hardware or mechanical.  Doing a little research on some possibilities for a project ideal, I came across a prototyping device called an Arduino.  You can argue that it can be viewed as an ‘older version’ of a Raspberry Pi, which is based on Linux.

Arduino image courtesy of Arduino.cc

I became quite interested in the capabilities of this device that I jumped the gun and ordered one along with a “Programming Arduino..” Book for me to get started.  At the time of this writing, I was only able to get through a few chapters to get some LED lamps to blink on the board at different rates.  It’s just the “Hello World” of hardware.  Nothing too exciting to see here, but it has so far gave me good insight into programming C.  I’m certainly no software engineer, so only time will tell if my brain is wired this way.  (I’m self-proclaimed ‘mechanical engineer’, even though I don’t have an ME degree.)

Back to the topic at hand, even though I haven’t dove into the product too much, I already thought of potential possibilities of what could be created.  Some are nothing new, just a test of skills.  And…. here it goes….

Idea Description
Electric derailleur electric bike derailleur with push button shifting
Draft efficiency display measures drafting efficiencies when cycling or in a race car using a Pitot tube
GPS based predictive lap timer predicts your lap around a race track (car or bike?)
Fuel efficiency display Displays efficiency of one’s driving to save fuel
Alarm clock World clock with Alarm
Prime rib readiness notifier temp probe would send a push notification to your phone when your prime rib is ready
MMS text of visitors Who visited your home when you were gone? Receive a text with image.
Automatic shifter for bikes Shifts your bike depending on torque placed on crank
Data Logger Logs performance data

I’m ready to get started.  Arduino. Check.  Breadboard.  Check.  Random jumpers, buttons, LED’s.  Check.  Bandaids.  Check.

Loving Music Again

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Actually, I was going to title this post as “I Invented Spotify!” or “Spotify Stalked Me in High School and Stole My Idea!” , but I didn’t. Back in the early 90’s we used to make “mix tapes” with our favorite songs and swap them around.  And when I say mix tapes, I do mean cassette tapes.  For my younger audience, they are these .  Eventually, we morphed into CD’s.  Now, that was nothing new.  People made mix tapes all the time and shared them with friends.  But what I did was something a bit different.

My father taught me a lot when I was growing up, so I was always tinkering with things.  Learning to solder circuit boards was something quite enjoyable.  I remember repairing old 286 and 386 computers with him in the living room using screw drivers and soldering up some boards.  I used this skill to try something.

I realized that there is a wide spectrum of frequencies for FM radio stations, and several of them were unused, notably FM87.5.  I picked up an electronics kit for an FM Transmitter similar to this one.  I built it up, got a little project box for it, tuned the frequency output to FM87.5 and connected my CD player.  It worked!  I threw in a CD and did a low power broadcast of what was playing on the CD player to a radio in the house.  Eventually, I moved this to the car and hid the box under my seat.  During a mini road trip with the family, I was able to do this broadcast of what we were listening to in one car, and shared it with the other family in another car, albeit up to 100ft away.  It was a one-way solution, but it worked.  We shared music.

Fast forward to today, I saw all the hype about Spotify, and wanted to give it a try.  Amazing product.  Don’t think it’s anything ‘new’ (Rhapsody was the first attempt at this from my memory), but it is a fun, easy way to solve this problem of sharing music, legally, with your peers.  A game changer.  I was amazed at the amount of music that is currently available.  Many of which I used to own on CD and Tapes which I have misplaced over time.  Friends and I would build playlists and share them with each other much like we used to do.  As an added bonus, we could collectively share a playlist and both contribute to it.  If opt-in, you could see what your friends are listening to and easily play that song too.  Throw in Pandora like features, mobile app, and also in-app Apps, and you got a great product. I wish Spotify the best, as I see a very bright future for them.

What’s the future for Spotify?  Acquisition?  Sounds like there are some people talking on the web that Netflix would be a good fit to acquire Spotify.  I could agree with it.  Apple apparently has already tried to block Spotify from entering the US, but has since failed.  Cloud products are everywhere now which has morphed from mostly enterprise products into consumer.  Music in the cloud is here.  We used to buy music LP’s and CD’s from music stores.  Gone.  We used to download it from friends via Napster.  Gone.  Buying digital music online? Not yet gone, but it could be if music in the cloud works out.  If I added up the 1,500 songs I have just in playlists on my Spotify, that would be $1,500 worth of MP3’s I would have purchased instead.  But for the price of $0.00, or $10/mo if you want to take it mobile and ad free,  I’m already ahead with access to more music I could ever listen to.

**Update**  Well then… Looks like Spotify has something going on with Y!.  http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/26/a-new-chapter-for-yahoo-music-a-deal-with-spotify-replacing-rhapsody/