Listen to your customers on Forums and Blogs

Chances are, if you've got a cat, you know how weird they can be. You also probably know that they have an obsession with electronics and will sit on keyboards, consoles, and anything else with a power button. There isn't really much you can do to stop them, as cats generally tend to do whatever they like, whenever they like; and sitting on warm, cozy electronics seems to be pretty high on their list of likes. However, one ISP in the UK did manage to come up with a solution for a customer whose cat wouldn't stay off his router.

"I'm having a problem with my router," the post began. "The problem is the router is apparently very attractive to my cat. She sleeps on top of it for most of the day and frequently knocks the aerial about, taking my wireless network down. She stays in the position shown above for hours, with the top of her head against the top of the router, as if she's interfacing with it somehow.

"I'm sick of my internet going down all the time due to this - is there a fix? I was thinking perhaps Be could send me a decoy router, then I could hide the real one somewhere else. I'm not sure if she could tell the difference."

Pope_friction included the following image with his post:

Not too long after, his ISP, Be Broadband, got in touch with him. The customer service rep said they had seen his post on the forums, confirmed that the issue was a common problem and agreed to help:

"We decided to send you a decoy router as you requested, however we will need some proof that the cat in the picture is a real one. Can you please send us more cute pictures of the aggressor?" they asked.

Be sent him a new router for his cat to sit on and explained that the best way to figure out her 'favorite' would be to plug both in and then attach the DSL cable to the one she doesn't sit on. The ISP added that if he ever decided to discontinue his service with the company, they would need the decoy router back and he'd have to appeal to his new ISP for help on the issue.

Originally published here