Hey to Bristol Instruments

Last week, I made an oblique mention of an equipment failure, and commented about the positive experience I had in dealing with their engineers on the phone. I carefully avoided naming the broken product or the company I was dealing with, out of some obscure sense of blogging ethics.

I shipped the broken item off to them, and on Friday got an email telling me it was fixed:

Don't ask me what exactly we did; but after some alignment and
power-on-power-off, it seemed to come online and give proper readings.
Perhaps the power surge mentioned in your blog hung up some logic gates?

I did a double-take at that paragraph, then again a little later on, when the final paragraph was a direct follow-up to the blog post linked above. It turns out they read my blog.

Anyway, I got a big package late yesterday, which turned out to be my repaired wavemeter in a paper towel box, and when I hooked it back up this morning, it's working perfectly (after a little tweak of the alignment).

So, many thanks to the folks at Bristol Instruments. It looks like I won't be scrounging up the money to buy a new wavemeter from them this year, but dealing with them was a great experience, and they'll definitely be at the top of my list the next time I'm looking for a wavemeter.

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It's nice when someone does it right. It makes you wonder why so many companies don't realize that customer service sells products.

Oddly enough, the last time I sent a piece of equipment to Bristol, they sent me an email that casually mentioned where my children go to school, my 1993 Gross Adjusted Income, and the name of that cute girl I had a crush on in junior high school.

They're very thorough.

Concealed within his fortress, the lord of Bristol Instruments sees all. His gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth, and flesh. You know of what I speak, Chad: a great Eye, lidless, wreathed in flame.

By Johan Larson (not verified) on 16 Jan 2008 #permalink

"Don't ask me what exactly we did; but after some alignment and power-on-power-off, it seemed to come online and give proper readings."

That's a computer science classic. You can't fix a computer, or wavemeter for that matter, by power cycling it without knowing what you are doing. Clearly, they knew what they were doing.