Gamers are happy to pay repair costs once they find out they’re paying for more than just parts.
In the modern hardcore fan-driven video game industry, where companies often see legions of supporters abandon them after a single unpopular decision, Nintendo enjoys an extraordinary amount of goodwill. A big part of that is the company’s amazing customer service, like the time it coordinated with the Pokémon Company to brighten the day of a young bullying victim.
But recently Japanese Twitter user @ORESAMA_No1 was singing Nintendo’s praises for a surprising reason: the amount they charged him for the labor to repair a piece of broken Nintendo hardware. Since he was happy about the situation, you might expect the invoice to list the repair labor (記述料 in Japanese) as free, but actually…
…Nintendo charged him 3.800 yen (US$35) for labor, even though the necessary parts were only 200 yen.
“They made sure to write down how expensive the labor is. That’s wonderful,” tweeted @ORESAMA_No1 without a shred of sarcasm as he also shared a snapshot of his bill. “Nowadays, there are a lot of customers who assume everything is free, and companies that can only get customers be offering to do stuff for free. So many people don’t understand that companies can’t make ends meet only charging for parts.”
Several other commenters chimed in to say that they too had no qualms about paying for repairs if Nintendo was telling them where that money was being spent.
“I’ve sent a whole bunch of things to Nintendo for repairs, and they always do an even better job than I’d expect for the price. Sure, it costs a bit, but when they ship my stuff back to me, it’s like it’s brand-new.”
“Nintendo has always taken good care of its customers.”
“That’s Nintendo for you, giving you the details like you’d get when you take your car to a mechanic.”
“Sony doesn’t write the details on their repair invoices, so sometimes I can’t understand why it’s costing me so much.”
Yet another Nintendo fan tweeted a photo of his Switch Joy-Con controller and the invoice for its repair, and sure enough, he’d been charged 100 yen parts, and 1,900 yen for labor.
Still, high-quality work or not, it’s an unexpected turn of events to see customers happy about having to pay for something. Maybe it’s a result of Nintendo’s image being more personal and artistic than its video game hardware rivals Sony and Microsoft, and so the reminder that some of the money repair service customers are spending is going to dedicated, hard-working Nintendo technicians probably makes those repair fees hurt a lot less.
Source: Twitter/@ORESAMA_No1 via Hachima Kiko
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