Getting Priority Service at Nokia Care

One of the most frustrating things with being a Nokia phone owner is to visit Nokia Care service centres. Nokia Care is so overcrowded, one wonders if Nokia really cares about their customers. In the past, I’ve waited like 15 minutes to get a queue number, before spending another 1.5 hours or so before it was my turn to be served. Then, getting even the simplest of phone repairs to be done would still take 2 or 3 working days. Then, the madness of queuing to collect the phone repeats itself again.

Every time after visiting Nokia Care, I tell myself I should switch to another brand of phone. Like Sony Ericsson perhaps. (The last time, after visiting Nokia Care at Wheelock, I walked over to Wisma Atria where there was a Sony Ericsson service centre, I noticed they did have a sizable crowd too.) The trouble is, Nokia does generally have some pretty good phones, so it is no surprise that I keep ending up with a Nokia phone.

I was pleasantly surprised recently to learn that Nokia Care does have “premium” service for selected phone owners. Specifically, the N95 and 8800 phones are considered “premium” models, and there is a separate queue for servicing of these phones. Much as I hated my experiences at Nokia Care, as a Nokia N95 8GB owner, I’m not complaining now.

How special is the priority service? Well, there is a separate queue (which presumably moves faster). Instead of the standard 3-5 days to repair a phone, premium phones are repaired in 2-4 hours. Then, there is also a separate queue for collection.

Alright, so how did this priority service fare for me?

3:50pm: I walked in and got queue number. There were 4 others ahead of me. I got to my turn in 5 minutes, but the counter staff seemed to be multitasking several things, so it did take them longer than I was expecting to get my phone sent in.

4pm: I was done and on my way out of Nokia Care. They committed to have the phone ready in 3 hours (7pm).

6:30: I went back to Nokia Care to get the queue number for collection again. I was supposed to be next in line for collection.

6:45: It did take quite a while this time to get to my turn. Actually weren’t even calling queue numbers for collection until now, when my number was called along with 3 others. No wonder, they were “batching up” collections to process in one go! Good for those who came later, annoying for me who was actually first in line. Furthermore, since they were batching the collections, the staff serving me disappeared for at least 10 minutes. I’d guess I was probably waiting for people behind me in the queue to also have their collection processed together.

7pm: Finally, I was done getting back my repaired phone and out of Nokia Care.

All in all, that was 3 hours and 10 minutes from the time I set foot into Nokia Care until I stepped out with the repaired phone.

Was I pleased with the service? Actually, if this had been my first time visiting Nokia Care, I would have thought it was only average. A 5 out of 10, if you had asked me to rate it. However, after having spent hours queueing previously, this was certainly a marked improvement. Still plenty room for improvement definitely, but it now feels so much to own a “premium” phone.