I have a friend that once thought, as we emailed each other back and forth several years ago, that I was typing out my entire name, address, and phone number at the bottom of every response to him. What he was looking at was my signature line – that part of the email that you set once and never change.

But here at milliamp.com, we tweak it every so often.

We just did that, so next time you get an email from us, look for these aspects:

1. See who you are communicating with. First Name and First Initial of Last Name. Great to know who you are communicating with, and for people that are sending devices to us, gives you a good understanding of all the people it takes to move a device through receiving, evaluation, repair, testing, shipping, and anything else in between.

2. Our tagline reinforces what we do (in an Apple-friendly way). Note the addition of the word ‘iPad’. iPads are here to stay, and we’re going to keep fixing them.

3. You can find the toll-free number to us on our site, but for our signature line, it’s our 210 prefix number. What person who owns an iPhone really cares about long-distance phone calls these days anyways?

4. We are all over the internet, and here are many of the links to learn more about who we are and what we do. Note the “call to action” before each one.

new-milliamp-signature-line

Tell you what – email us now (service at milliamp.com) and see if for yourself!

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

tron-friday

Despite the backlog of work, we closed up shop a bit early last Friday and we all headed to Paladium at The Rim to see the IMAX 3D version of Tron Legacy. I liked the fillm and will probably purchase the DVD when it comes out.

Here’s a few comments from some of the other employees that attended the movie:

Daniel: “Visually mind-blowing.”
Wes: “Seeing ‘Tron’ was like witnessing an iPhone jailbreak go wrong. The grid was in peril and a simple ‘restore’ saved it.”
David: “Visually amazing!! Kind of made me scared of the future though!”
Martin: “Stunning visuals. A perfect compliment to the gift Tron.”
Chris: “Tron in my opinion was a masterpiece designed to ignite the imagination and devour your senses. I enjoyed the movie so much that I would have loved to have seen it put into a series form like ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Harry Potter’. The movie kept me standing on my feet because sitting at the edge of my seat just wouldn’t be enough.”
Jon: “A true masterpiece of our time!”

Bottom line: go see it.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

We get a lot of customers from our websites, and a respectable number of walk-in customers as well. But at least once a day, someone asks as they cautiously peer into our front door, “Is this the place the fixes iPhones?”. Yes, please come in!

In order to help reduce that anxiety, we are going to be adding some neat decals to three of our windows in the next few weeks – I will tweet out a picture when that time comes, for sure.

While this mock-up gives the impression that the decals will take up the entire window frame, that’s not quite accurate – the signs are only 24″ x 36″ and, now that we just got landlord approval, will be made and installed courtesy of ExecutiveSigns here in San Antonio:

new-signage-ipod-repair

So next time your roll up, you will be able to see exactly what we do!

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

'Doh!

We have helped literally thousands and thousands of customers, and have been thanked by many, many people. But for some reason, I think my staff and I seem to remember most vividly the times when things do not always work out the way we had intended.

To help illustrate this point, I want to tell you the (true) stories of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good
A day or so before Thanksgiving, we had two customers in our lobby. The woman at the counter was checking in her son’s iPad, which got smashed up while he was away in Iraq. When the order taker at the front counter waived over a technician to inspect the device, it became apparent that the customer might also need a new backplate. The customer reluctantly agreed to also pay for a new backplate for her son’s iPad, and headed out the door. The other customer in the lobby had overheard the entire conversation, and told us that he wanted to cover the cost of the lady’s iPad backplate. Wow! He did and later, the woman was so pleased to have such a nice person sympathize with her situation.

The Bad
In this situation, we had a customer that had spilled water on her brand new 5th Generation iPod nano and the LCD went out. She sent the device to us, we replaced the LCD and the battery, and the device was working great. When she received it, however, it was dead. Not completely unusual with water-damaged devices, but we stepped up and had her ship it back to us on our dime and we ended up replacing another part in it, again, at our expense. The device sails through testing and works great. She gets it back, and it is dead. Definitely frustrating, but again, with water-damage of this magnitude, not entirely un-heard of. We get it sent back to us again, and we determine that the logic board on the device is toast – all the new parts we installed were working great, but the logic board finally succumbed to the initial water trauma. The customer contacted me and we discussed this most unusual situation, and I explained that we see odd things when it comes to water damaged devices. We agreed to credit her account in full for all of the parts she had paid for (even though they were still inside her device) and send the device back to her (which was actually working for us again as we packaged it up and sent it to her). Well, she received it back a third time and guess what? The device was not working again. Surprising to hear us since it was actually working for us here but again, not entirely unusual because of the unpredictability with water damaged devices. But the customer did not call me. She did not email me. But she did file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I was frankly dumbfounded, as it was my understanding that the customer fully understood that these things can happen with water damaged devices, knew that we had credited her account despite our parts still being inside, and surely must have known the tremendous amount of labor that went into not only working with her troubled little nano, but all the labor it took to communicate with her, receive her device in, ship her device out, etc. Why sumbit a milliamp BBB complaint when I am available to work something out!? Anyways, we finally ended up resolving the situation with this customer, and she is happy now and we are happy now, and we both have a new-found respect for the temperamental nature of water damaged iPods!

The Ugly
Nothing frustrates me more when we have someone that is rude to us after we have expended effort to answer persons’ questions to the best of our ability and in a timely manner. But that is what happened with this recent exchange between my Customer Service Representatives and person who was inquiring about a repair and apparently lost sight that there was another human being with feelings on the other side of their conversation:

~~
Matthew Robert Posted on: 27 Nov 2010 3:36 PM
From: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’
Ok so my friend let me borrow his new iPod touch 4g and I broke the screen it fell face first on the pavement. But his iPod is jailbroken so i wsa wondering if you can fix jailbroken ipods

David C. Replied on: 29 Nov 2010 10:36 AM
Dear Matthew,
Thanks for contacting us. It really doesn’t affect us if the device is jail broken. We can replace the glass either way. If you have any other questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Have a great day.
Here’s a link to our 4th Gen iPod Touch repair,

http://www.milliamp.com/4th-gen-ipod-touch-repair.html

Best regards,
David C.

Matthew B. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 8:50 AM
From: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’
Can you give me a lower price

David C. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 9:54 AMMatthew,
Sorry, but we cannot offer this at a lower price. Have a great day.
Best regards,
David C.

Matthew B. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 10:15 AM
From: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’
Well you just lost buiessnes for me and 6 of my friends

Marian C. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 10:52 AM
Well, we are sorry to hear that, Matthew. Your business would be very much appreciated. We truly wish our well-trained repair technicians would be able to get your iPod touch up and running again with our high-quality parts, but we hope that you’ll let us know in the future if you’d like to use us for any repairs.

P.S. To keep from getting burned by any other companies, please remember that the 4th Generation iPod touch is built in a way that the LCD and outer glass/digitizer are fused together as one piece and cannot be installed separately. Any company advertising otherwise is not selling a legitimate part. Also, the repair is $128 which is $109 for the part plus $19 for labor.

Best regards,

Marian C.

Matthew B. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 11:00 AM
From: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’
Well a companie that apple says has real parts does it for 84.99 so Hahahahah

David C. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 12:19 PM

That’s great! We’re sorry we couldn’t have been a better help, but keep us in mind for any other future repairs you may need. Good luck!
Best regards,
David C.

Matthew B. Posted on: 01 Dec 2010 2:25 PM
From: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’

O just suck a Wang

From: Anthony Magnabosco
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 9:23 AM
To: ‘tarheelfan14@gmail.com’

Matthew,

If the maturity of your responses below to my Customer Service Agents (who were only trying to assist you with your questions) is any indication of what kind of friends you may be hanging around with, we do not want your referrals. Besides, we owe our competitors a Christmas present anyways, so please head elsewhere. Good day, sir.

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner

Milliamp LTD | Repairs for Apple’s iPod, iPhone, and iPad
5890 De Zavala Road Suite 107
San Antonio, TX 78249
Cell Phone: 210-787-9482

To which this most eloquent individual replied:

From: Matthew B. [mailto:tarheelfan14@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 4:55 PM
To: Anthony Magnabosco

Hey my friends are fine but u rme sonny boy speak English need
~

Huh?!

Now, let me ask you. You just read about three different scenarios that occurred this week – which one sticks out in your mind? The good, the bad, or the ugly?

Have a great weekend, y’all.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner

paul-fairchild-ipod-art

Being in the business, we have seen a lot of smashed iPods, iPads, and iPhones.

iPods run over by a tank, iPads run over by a car, iPod touch with dumbbells dropped on them, and the way-too-common iPhone-dropped-in-a-toilet.

But the devices you see here, captured by Michael Tompert and photographer Paul Fairchild were intentionally destroyed.

Now, we are good, but this looks like damage that would be a bit beyond our repair skils!

More of these stunning images here.

Have a great weekend!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

We received our official registration with the USPTO a few days ago, and can now legally toss an (R) after our milliamp.com monicker.

This was not a short, easy, or cheap process, but we believe it will help demonstrate to the savvy consumer that in Milliamp LTD they have found a real business, with real people, and with real products and services that are worthy of their trust.

Milliamp reviews hundreds of emails each week (Marian would argue each day) and a common theme we get is “Can we trust you.”. It’s a big leap of faith customers have to make when deciding to send off their expensive iPad 3G or iPhone 4 to get repaired. And imparting our core values quickly (people usually just spend seconds on website before deciding to bail or not) and getting folks to gain our trust takes a lot of work, and having our milliamp.com name registered with this U.S. Government entity is just one more step in the right direction.

So, over the course of the next several months, keep an eye out on our site, our business cards, and everywhere else you see the milliamp.com logo to start sporting the slightly new look!

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com(R)

milliamp.com Reviews Registration

milliamp.com is Registered with the USPTO

A few weeks ago, Milliamp LTD received word that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published its’ notification of our intent to register milliamp.com.

Shortly, barring any opposition, we will be able to use the (R) symbol after the milliamp.com logo, instead of the TM designation that you currently see on our website.

This is a pretty big deal for companies, actually.

For those that are not aware, pretty much anyone can throw up a TM after a word, phrase, symbol, etc. to asert that you own the trademark to something. It’s actually a smart thing to do, and can help give you some added protection in the event someone else begins to use the same monicker. However, having a TM simply says that you plan to start or have started the protection process for your business name, but your ownership of that name is not official.

Only companies that have officially registered with the USPTO are able to replace their TM with an R (in fact, showing an R after your name without the nod from the USPTO is quite illegal). Having the R gives you even greater protection than having a TM, as the R signals that the USPTO themselves have researched your ownership rights and have given ample opportunity for others to challenge the legitimacy of the ownership claim. When the USPTO approves your registration attempt, they are effectively signing off and saying that, yes, you are indeed are the owner of the mark and are entitled to all the protections afforded to it.

Once we receive word that it’s official, do not expect our TM to transform to a R overnight. The implications of such a minor change are mind-numbing, as the number places that we have the milliamp.com logo with a TM after it are plentiful: business cards, internal documentation, instructional brochures, website meta data, website images, email signature lines, videos, and even our signage are all places to look. And don’t forget about marketing materials, affiliate marketing, and schwag, either!

It will take us months to completely remove the TM and replace it with an R on all instances of the milliamp.com logo but, like anything we set out to accomplish, we will eventually complete the task.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.comTM (for now!)

The video cameras that we have here at our iPhone repair shop been very useful for us, and I can’t stop gushing about them. They have been a great investment.

During Receiving

We have been using our cameras to capture the unboxing of iPods and iPhones as we receive them in, which has proven useful time and time again, especially if we ever encounter the dreaded “but-it-was-working-when-I-sent-it-to-you” phone calls we sometimes get from our customers. And since the detail on our receiving cameras is not as sharp as we would like, we will oftentimes highlight defects with a laser pointer to help illustrate where exactly we are noticing something out of the ordinary.

Inbound Receiving Camera

Related to inbound devices, here is a short video we had to pull up showing the United States Postal Service delivering a package to our office. The only problem was, there should have been TWO packages delivering at this time, not one. Score another win for the cams!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhacGkETCxk[/youtube]

During Shipping

It finally dawned on us that being able to capture the condition of the repaired devices right before we ship them back to our customers is equally, if not more, important than capturing them on the inbound. So we added a camera that captures our final stage of quality control (the part where we demonstrate that everything is working), our cleaning the device to remove any smudges, and the boxing up of the working device to illustrate the care we use when shipping anything back to our customers.

Quality Control Testing Outbound Camera

Funny Stuff

Occassionally, we happen to catch an employee falling off a chair or tripping or doing a zany dance. Or in this case, watch Chris do his best to stand on our ball of shipping labels in between fielding phone calls and emails from customers.

Spontaneity Camera Views

We continue to find ways to use video in our iPhone repair business, and not just the video that our security cameras capture. We also take videos of pages on our website, such as our terribly exciting Terms of Service, to help prove to our customers when they were established.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

For those that know me, I have a bit of a domain name addiction. I think it reached its’ peak of insanity when I purchased the domain blake-is-the-new-sanjaya.com (true story) a few years back when Sanjaya was voted off ‘American Idol’ and hack Blake was deemed the next in line Howard Sterns’ goal to inspire enough people to vote a talentless dweeb to the top spot.

I’ve struggled to hold my personal obsession with URL’s back, but I think we got a bit lucky when, back in April 2009, we registered the iPad repair domain names ipad-repair.com and ipadrepair.com. Since we are going to be hard-core in the iPad repair business, having domain names that say what we do will be most helpful to Milliamp LTD:

Two New iPad Repair Domain Names

For now, these two sites aren’t doing a whole heck of a lot for us, but they will eventually become a great resource for our future customers seeking iPad repairs and parts.

Now, who has any suggestions for helping us monitize our leet-inspired domain names for Twitter?

Have a great evening,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

P.S. We had two GOLD iPhone backplate winners this week – one worker here at Milliamp LTD and one iPhone fanatic from Alaska. More details on this coming soon!

To show our appreciation for our hard-working iPod and iPhone and soon-to-be iPad Repair employees (and also to get them off my back), we are going to give away one of our shiny new gold iPhone backplates (and gold bezel) to one of our workers at our next weekly stand-up meeting on Monday!

Gold iPhone Back Cover Drawing

The winning worker will be able to get a new gold backplate, new gold bezel, and new internal backplate parts (e.g. camera mount, headphone jack ring, etc.) and all the labor needed to swap out their boring black or white iPhone back cover with this stunning new mount.

They will, however, have to allow us to take a few professional, in-house pictures of their most-gloriously-bedazzled iPhone so that we can share our work with the world!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Until then, talk with you on Lunes.