July 2005 Archives

We have been wrangling with Nextel customer care for the past week - see the last post. After doing a bit more research we are getting close to making the jump to Verizon. A good resource for those looking for cellular ratings would be the Consumer Reports Survey: the results are not shocking. Verizon was best in our area, and best nationally- Nextel, on the other hand, was rated worst nationally, with low levels of customer satisfaction. We can echo that sentiment.

Posted by Michael O'Connell at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)

Nextel has been the long time choice of many in the construction industry. Their walkie talkie feature made the beep-beep of Nextel phones common place on jobsites throughout the country. We have been Nextel customers for several years, our plan growing steadily over time to include more and more phones (we were laughing in the office the other day about how we ever got anything done in the days of pagers).

Our problems with Nextel recently started with one phone, (mine) going over its allotted minutes. We called Nextel to try to change the rate plan or add additional purchased minutes. We were curtly informed that they could make the change but it would not take effect until the next billing period. This, however, did not solve our problems, we needed extra minutes this month. The representatives at Nextel however hid behind their policy of no changes once the billing period has started (they no doubt relish the millions of dollars in overage charges they receive). After trying via email and on the phone to speak to a supervisor, we were again informed that no exception could be made.

That was fine for Nextel, but did not work well to meet our needs. So now we are looking at other cellular carriers, who will actually help us with our wireless service. Imagine if we had been a huge company with hundreds of phones; Nextel's policy may make their billing easier but it doesn't help their customers.

After checking around, both Verizon and Cingular do offer pro-rated plans, as did Nextel a few years ago. It's not that the policy was the problem, it was the impression that they did not care about our business.

The rest of the Nextel Series:
Nextel Service Update, Making the Switch to Verizon

There was an interesting article about Japanese gardens today in the San Francisco chronicle. Osmosis, a Japanese Spa retreat in Sonoma County has some beautiful Japanese gardens created by Osmosis founder Michael Stusser after a garden apprenticeship spent in Kyoto.

For good local examples of Japanese gardens this may be a good place to visit. The garden is only open to spa guests, except when they have special events, such as concerts- check the Chronicle Article for more details.

Making an authentic looking Japanese garden is not an easy task. I took a trip to Kyoto in 2001 and after seeing the real thing it is easy to spot imitators. You can view two of the better examples of Japanese Gardens in our Great Gardens portfolios for the Portland Japanese Gardens, and the San Francisco Japanese Tea House in Golden Gate Park.