You read about, and often experience the lack of customer care most large companies have these days. This is a blog to say thank you, for showing it is still out there. The surprise company?, Orange.

I've had my current phone for 2 years. It's developed an annoying habit of not outputting any sound when ringing, regardless of the profile. A reboot sorts it, but it's irritating. So I had a look around. For toys, the N95 seemed like a nice upgrade. I mainly use my phone as a phone, but toys are always nice .

I looked at the orange website, saw that for my contract it was 49 quid. Not too bad. I was prepared to pay it. I wasn't going to leave orange as I have a number of friends/family on orange with orange only minutes, and I've had good service from them.

I don't use anywhere as near as many minutes as I used too, and I now use a few texts a month, so I thought I'd change contracts too. I wasn't sure I could change contracts *and* get the phone for 50 quid, so I phoned them up. I spoke to a gentleman and explained that I was after the N95, wanted to change my tariff, but wanted to check that I could get the handset at that price. He said he would find out, and shortly I was connected to the retentions department. I wasn't planning on leaving, but I thought I'd see where it took me. They found a contract that covers my normal usage for 20 pounds a month less than my current contract, and they said they would do the phone for free. Bonus I thought. Then came the big one. The very helpful lady, who's name I wish I had remembered, asked if I was aware of the battery life issues with the N95, lots of people had been returning them due to it. Not being aware I asked for a reference number, and said I'd do some research and call back. I'm so glad I did, it turns out that even with the toys turned off, 1 day between battery charges is optimistic, most people seem to have to charge them during the day too.

So I had a hunt around and found the HTC TyTN II. Nice toys, more juice.

So I called back, gave them the reference number, said that I'd done some research and I'd like to take the HTC TyTN II instead.

Orange were under no obligation to try and get me a free upgrade, and they were under no obligation to inform me of the limited battery life. It's right there on their website, which if I had been 1/2 awake when I read, I would have seen. I am very grateful to whom ever it was that informed me of the battery life issues. They have saved me a bundle of pain. Added to the reduced contract, I'm impressed. I would gladly recommend Orange to anyone after todays customer service.