Expectional Customer Service - At and Airport?
I got up at the crack of dawn today and headed to the airport. I am on my way to the Adobe MAX conference. This is going to be quite an event and I am very pleased to be a presenter here. But that is not why I am posting.
After I started traveling a bunch for training and speaking engagements, I realized that the noise on the airplane would eventually lead me to some kind of disastrous and jail-time inducing event and I needed to act fast. Before making the investment in a good pair of head phones I did some research. I borrowed some brookstone noise canceling headphones but they made my head hurt. I figured that they were just not nice enough and made my way to a pair of bose. But the end result was the same. The slow onset, head splitting, mother of all headaches. I realized active noise canceling, although all the rage, where not my thing.
So after a little more research I settled on a pair of E3C sure in ear buds. I love these headphones. My only regret with these headphones was not buying the E4C’s
But I think its really important that I note I really researched. I hit up everybody on my IM list and half the people I have only met at confs to see what they used. I read specs and reviews and then bit the bullet. I tell you this because its an important character of me. It happens only very rarely that when I purchase something the sales rep at the store has anything to add to my knowledge of a product. In fact most of the time I end up doing an informal training session and bring them up to speed on the technologies. I can produce character witnesses if anyone doubts this.
I use the foam ear plug style adapters on my headphones. After a couple dozen trips these are starting to get a little gross. They are dirty and they dont like to expand to fill my ear any more. I found the replacement pack online but didnt have time to order before this trip. So this morning I got here to the airport early and decided to look around. I remembered that the inmotion booth down in terminal E was selling Shure headsets last time I was through there so I decided to head down that way. I think its really important to note that this event went down at 6:30 AM on a SUNDAY at an AIRPORT KIOSK. I found that they did have some replacement adapters, but they only had the foam ones for the e2c headsets. I decided against all odds to ask the attendant if they had any. This is where things went all “alice in wonderland”, but in a good way. The guy came over confirmed they did not have what I wanted out on display. And I figured this is where it would end. But know, he went and dug around in the cupboard to confirm they didnt have any around. And after about 5 minutes of searching proclaimed that it was nuts they didnt have any but he had a solution. He then went over behind the counter and produced 2 of the cute little yellow adapters. They do demos of the E3C’s and have fresh ones for each demo. He gave me a pair. The 3 pack replacement is $10, and he just gave these to me because they didnt have them for me to buy. I was so shocked I asked if I could buy something else to make it worth his while. We started chatting about the headphones and that was when I realized what a diamond in the rough this guy is. He actually knows his shit. Starts talking about the differences between the diodes and wiring between the headsets and how they make a difference. This guy is at an AIRPORT KIOSK. This guy needs to be recognized for the gem that he is. I bought coffee this morning and that process was a mess. But this guy makes my day with his exceptionally knowledge and wonderful customer service.
So I had to share this long drawn out post because I am bored and sitting at an airport. But if you are ever at Portland International Airport I totally recommend you take your business to the inmotion audio video booth in terminal E. You wont regret it for a minute.
30 Sep 2007 Simeon

Did you ever stop to consider that this guy had the hots for you?
Truly, it’s sad that when customer service has gotten so predictably bad that we feel compelled to write about it when it actually doesn’t suck.