Tuvel Communications Blog: January 2009 Archives

January 05, 2009

Web of caring: Hospitalized, JDS student takes life online

by Adam Kredo

Staff Writer, Washington Jewish Week

After major surgery, most 9-year-olds would merely take it easy. But not Elan Arnowitz: From the comfort of his Baltimore hospital bed, this youngster has decided "to go public."

A fourth-grader at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Elan has Perthes disease, a degenerative hip condition that causes immobility and leg pain. The only fix was a major form of hip surgery that took place at Baltimore's Sinai Hospital. Though successful, the operation has had the Rockville youngster confined to a hospital bed since the start of November.

"Not many kids my age have been through what I've been through," Elan said, referring not to his condition, but rather to his family's decision to take his story and life online in the form of multiple Web sites, blogs and Internet forums.

After nearly two months of nonstop posting and updating to his site, Elan has become an Internet superstar of sorts, receiving nods from not only family members, but various celebrities and sports heroes as well.

Read the rest of the story here.

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January 03, 2009

How @comcastcares and Twitter save Birthday for recovering 10 yr old

Our son is recovering from surgery. It's a long road but he'll be fine.

Elan's a New Year's baby. This year marks double digits. Unfortunately, he'll mark it at Sinai Hospital's Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics. We decided to take Elan home for one day though- his Birthday. I decided to buy and install a large screen TV. We've wanted one for some time now and figured that it would help with Elan who will continue to lie low once we return home.

I bought the TV at retail and had all the vendors lined up for the install. I explained the situation and all assured me that they would do their part. No small feat as a few people had to show up at the same time on the same day to get it all done. Most were sympathetic to our plight and understood that I'd be home for one day only before heading back to the hospital.

I raced home to begin the wait. The usual snags happened with incorrect windows, customer service that couldn't find me in their records, etc. We did however have a stoke of luck with 3 guys finally standing in our family room on a Monday afternoon.

Several hours into it, and several trips to Radio Shack, the Comcast repairman realized that he brought the wrong cable box. I begged him to return with the correct box and make a 10 yr old smile. No go though. Comcast still hasn't figured out that the guys they put in front of customers are on the front line. They make or break the customer experience and relationship. I wasn't as bothered by the fact that the repairman couldn't deliver as I was that he didn't care. And, this guy didn't care... But, this is a story about great service and caring people so we'll leave it at that...

Several hours later, the TV was up on the wall and Firedog had done a workaround to at least test the TV to make sure it worked. I was at wits end though with one missing piece to the puzzle and that was Comcast.

I called customer service only to be told several times that the earliest date they could correct their mistake was a week away. Not real good for a Birthday 2 days away! So there I was with a dilemma.

This is where @comcastcares steps in to save the day. I sent a tweet out at 12:30am on December 30th- 2 days before the New Year's birthday. 3 minutes later, @comcastcares tweets back, asking for details. In the morning, I send details. @comcastcares responds immediately, telling me that they have their local team looking into it. I couldn't find or get arrested with a 'local Comcast team' or office- believe me, I tried.

30 mins. later I get a cell call from Comcast letting me know that they are pulling someone from an existing job to fix our problem! Sure enough, Mario arrives at the house within the hour with the correct equipment. I, of course, beg the Comcast guy that initially called to stay in touch should something go wrong. And, he does!

By around noon on the 30th- 12 hrs after my first tweet went out- the problem is solved. Needless to say, our son's jaw dropped when he saw the TV. He had a great 10th Birthday- watching the ball drop in high def and all.
One of the amazing things about this story is that Frank of @comcastcares fame was on vacation while this was all going on! Talk about great customer service...

Those of us in the business know that Twitter can be a great customer service tool. Hopefully, more and more companies will get on the band wagon and tweet their way into better relationships!

Thanks again to @comcastcares for saving this day and making a 10 yr old smile.

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