Uniden NZ Ltd

[slofox]

I have a cordless phone system in the shop that is now over 6 years old. It has a corded baseset and a cordless handset that sits in its own cradle.

Recently the cordless handset lost its LCD screen - guess it got dropped once too often. Apart from that, it still worked fine as a phone. But. I quickly discovered I needed that screen more than I had thought - for things like caller ID, missed calls, etc etc etc.

So I phoned up Dick Smith's. And got the expected answers from the young dweebly salesmen "Ah nah mate that's a discontinued model y'll need to buy a whole new setup!"
"Well fuck that," I thought, "the phone works just fine apart from that one screen. There must be some other way around this..."

Couple days later I called into DSE and got an older dude as a salesman. Who, rather than trying to flog me a new deal, suggested that I give Uniden NZ a call to see what they could do. Which I did.

The guy there took my number and said he'd have a rattle round and see if he could solve the problem. True to his word, he rang back a couple of hours later to say that they had a handset there that would work with my baseset. For the grand sum of $30.00. Bit cheaper than a whole new setup and far less wasteful eh.

Arrived this morning by courier ($3.50 courier fee). Paired it with the baseset and away we go. They'd even fully charged the battery before sending it.

So, thumbs up to Uniden NZ for going out of their way to find a solution to a problem instead of going hard out to sell a new setup. And another thumbs up to the older guy at DSE who also forbore trying to make a sale and put me on track to solve the problem. Both these have earned my respect and will definitely get more business from me in future.

We need more like them.

[Swoop]

I have to agree there Mr Fox.

I had an older unit and went to their premises to see if a spare part might be available.
Unfortunately "no". But they did a serious deal on their latest model of phone as an upgrade.

Jolly good business acumen if you ask me. Solved my problem, updated my technology and had another sale out of it.

[Scuba_Steve]

I woulda probably told you to get a new one too. Extra 7$ for new, wouldn't seem right to sell you 6yrs old tech given the price diff, especially when that extra 7$ would get you a complete 2nd phone

[pete376403]

Some of us really dislike binning workable stuff just because it is slightly old. An organisation I do work for has just dropped a whole pile of slightly older, working fine Brother laser printers in the skip, because buying new toner cartridges costs more (by a large margin) than new printers. I really hate that.

[slofox]

Some of us really dislike binning workable stuff just because it is slightly old. An organisation I do work for has just dropped a whole pile of slightly older, working fine Brother laser printers in the skip, because buying new toner cartridges costs more (by a large margin) than new printers. I really hate that.

AS pete says, why bin workable stuff because it is slightly old? The whole "chuck it away and get a new one" approach of modern business does not sit well with me. I hate wasting resources like that. Just a personal thing - probably resulting from being a kid in the 1950's when getting anything new was damn near impossible.

The phone in question is for talking to people. It performs this task just fine. The only thing not working was one screen. A total replacement system just didn't stack up for me.

[ynot slow]

Slightly off tangent but 25 yrs or so ago,my car had Hella 100w spot lights,some idiot backed into my bumper and broke the light(had lens cover on to protect the glass)tried to glue the plastic but no avail.Went to local auto sparky who said had to buy whole unit at about $65 ($200 today lol)so rang Hella nz,they sent me the complete light less the lens which I changed at no cost,bloody used hella all times since then.

[Edbear]

Uniden are great to deal with! I had an older GPS that I couldn't get upgrades for so went to see them and they gave me a VERY nice deal on the then brand new not quite released yet Trax 5000, trading my old model in for it. It's still going great and I can update it online.

Anyone looking for anything they sell would be advised to go direct to them, I was treated very well by all the staff there!

[vifferman]

On a different but related note, our last phone was a VTech, and it was crap. The problem was that the base seemed to always charge the phone's battery when on it, with the result that the batteries never lasted long. They were also expensive to replace, and had to be specially ordered each time they were cooked. Compounding its shitness was the fact that it was almost impossible to use the answerphone function without the manual, and the markings on the base set were so small as to be ilegible without glasses.
Our new(ish) phone is Panasonic, chosen because it was cheap (bought it at the Appliance Shed), worked with our wireless network, can be operated without a manual or spectacles, takes ordinary rechargeable batteries, and extra handsets can be added to the system (we have a three-storey house, so that's a great feature, as is the intercom function for summoning the Mutant Troglodyte Spwn for dinner...)

[rphenix]

Buy something like a Siemens Gigaset, and you can mix and match the base with any compatible handset (generally as long as its DECT, and the same frequency eg 5ghz they will be compatible), though you'd be lucky if you got a retail staffer who was aware of it.

[slofox]

Buy something like a Siemens Gigaset, and you can mix and match the base with any compatible handset (generally as long as its DECT, and the same frequency eg 5ghz they will be compatible), though you'd be lucky if you got a retail staffer who was aware of it.

'specially at DSE... morons