Wiipairs

So our Wii Balance Board died.

Normally when you power it up and step onto the board, there's a big green blob that shows up on the screen - normally somewhere in the center of the screen depending on your center of balance. Well, the green blob was showing up ALL the way on the RIGHT edge of the screen.

I called Nintendo.

First, I was impressed with how easy it was to get a human being on the phone.

Second, I was impressed that said human being spoke English and was both friendly and competent. She walked me through a simple diagnostic test on the Wii that showed one of the left side sensors in the board had gone bad.

Third, I give Nintendo a thumbs-up for turnaround time. I dropped the broken balance board off at the postal annex last Friday afternoon. Today, exactly one week later, we received a new-in-the-box replacement balance board with a note saying they confirmed my board was broken.

Overall, I give gave Nintendo Customer Service 4 1 out of 5 stars.
Pretty good, but they didn't go the extra mile, and they didn't honor the warranty on the Wii Balance Board. (Text in red updated 5/4/2009, click the link to read the follow-up.)

What do I mean by the extra mile?

The places that I would give 5 stars for going the extra mile (3Com, Garmin, Dish Network) earned it by immediately shipping me a replacement unit (not necessarily brand new - more likely a refurbished unit). It got me back in business sooner, and it made the shipping a lot easier.

Consider:

Option A: Me or my wife having to go to a Mailboxes Etc or UPS or FEDEX store to get the Wii Balance Board packaged up, send it in, wait for Nintendo to receive it, repair or replace it, and ship it back to me.

Option B: Nintendo ships me a replacement unit. I open the box, take out the replacement, put the broken one in the box, slap the prepaid return shipping label that was in the box, and hand it back to the FEDEX delivery guy.

Yyyyyeah... I much prefer Option B.