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Allison Berman
Allison Berman is not only a talented artist and decorating guru, she is also a weekly columnist for the Times Herald Record! Every Tuesday 200,000+ readers follow her trials and tribulations of running a successful business and a happy household.

Read her most recent column below, or click here to catch up on some of her oldies but goodies. If you are looking for a writer for your newspaper, magazine, or blog; or if you just want to say hi, shoot Allison an email directly at ali@withlovealib.com.
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Customer Support Can Help

By Allison Berman
March 2, 2010

Take a look, find a nook.

In your nook, read a book with a Snook.

Have fun. Cut loose.

Pour yourself a glass of juice.

In your nook, read a book with a Snook.

The people at the store thought I might need a new BlackBerry so I brought mine back. They tried to diagnose the problem while I entertained my 18 month old with fruit loops. They finally suggested I search www.google.com and www.crackberry.com to see if anyone posted the same problem or call technical support.

A very nice woman from Verizon's technical support then wasted 10 hours of my life over several days. She had me uninstall the desktop software my BlackBerry came with and reinstall an online version; and repeat the process countless times trying upgraded versions. She then had me go through the same time consuming process with the BlackBerry.

Hmm she said, "Maybe the problem is the contacts. Delete all contacts whose email addresses have underscores."

"Take the battery out and count to 30."

I did the hokey pokey and I turned myself around and the devices still wouldn't talk.

When I realized her solutions were coming from crackberry and google postings I insisted she escalate my case to BlackBerry's technical support. I freaked out when after being placed on hold for 10 minutes, the escalated support person was Verizon too. His manager talked me down and escalated me to Research In Motion (BlackBerry tech support).

Now for the really funny part (funny if you are reading this not funny if you are living it). It only took him 15 minutes to get the address books to synch. But here's the kicker, he then told me POP3 accounts in Microsoft Outlook don't have the functionality to reconcile email in both places.

My blood was boiling. It was bad enough the salesperson wasn't aware of the limitation but the people in Verizon's technical support? How could they not know?

To make matters worse, I just ran a column explaining how a BlackBerry would help me be more efficient with my business. That clearly wasn't true if I have to replicate my work on each device. I reached out to both companies.

RIM's representative suggested I switch my POP3 through GoDaddy for one of their IMAP accounts. It costs another $30 per year but now when I delete from my blackberry it deletes on my desktop. I just can't get the reverse to work, but we are still plugging away.

While we do, Verizon's representative is seeing to it that the people involved in my series of mishaps are properly educated, and assured me if I went over my "30 day trial" trying to make it work, he would make it right. I really can't ask for more than that...




Allison Berman, an artist and mother of two, handpaints custom home accessories for interior designers and private customers. She works out of her home studio in Warwick, NY. See her collection at www.withlovealib.com. She can be reached at ali@withlovealib.com. Her column appears Tuesdays.