Everyone is always talking about their bad customer service experience. We all have horror stories we can’t wait to tell our friends. I have about a bazillion, but frankly, I’m kind of sick of telling those stories (and hearing them).
What’s been the best customer experience you’ve had lately, or ever? What company has surprised you with their hospitality, attentiveness, speediness, helpfulness, attitude? What company do you recommend to your friends with gusto?
SH
on 11 Jun 08I’ll start: I bought a bed and mattress from West Elm recently, and both were delivered 2 weeks before I expected them. The mattress doesn’t fit the bed, even though they are both the same size, and I’ve never dealt with more attentive or helpful people while trying to sort out the issue. I don’t feel a lick of frustration even though I spent $2K on a bed that doesn’t fit, since I’m confident they’re going to get it sorted out for me without me having to demand it.
Josh
on 11 Jun 08I am always, always, always impressed with Amazon. They never disappoint me.
Bo
on 11 Jun 08The first time I saw Zappos.com’s slogan (something like “a customer service company that sells shoes”) I thought, oh god, what a lot of marketing tripe.
However, they really live up to it. I always place an order using the cheapest shipping method, and it’s always upgraded to overnight for free. Returning shoes couldn’t be easier. It’s very fast to get someone on the phone. They don’t make you run a gamut to cancel an order or return an item. They don’t assume that the customer is the source of all problems.
Nick
on 11 Jun 08To Die For
Yahtzee!
Doug S.
on 11 Jun 08For me it was Apple. I’ve never had a customer support go this far out of their way to help me, even seeing if there was a way to skirt international law!
Basically, the short version is my laptop died the week before my final project was due. I had backups (thank god) but I needed to buy a laptop immediately or I was going to miss my deadline.
The problem was I live in London now and all I had was my bank card. My bank account didn’t have the money not to mention there was a limit on how much I could spend in a given day.
I called Apple customer support so see if there was a way to make the purchase in the US but have it shipped to me in the UK. There wasn’t. We found this out over an hour during which I kept getting put on hold while me and the operator kept coming up with possible solutions. Some of them required he go off and talk to a manager and at one point he even called me back since he knew it was either that or I remain on hold for over 20 minutes while he goes and discusses something with the sales department about international trade laws.
In the end he couldn’t help and I had to work something out with my bank but the guy went far above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak. I’ve never before or since had a customer support rep work so hard to help me out.
I e-mailed the company to tell them to commend the guy for his actions, something I never do.
I guess in the end it wasn’t whether or not he could help me that made the difference it was that the guy worked so very hard to figure out a way, even though in the end it wasn’t possible.
Of course this in direct contrast to Virgin Atlantic who after stranding me in NYC overnight due to a delayed flight I had to take because they lost my booking on the earlier one, I was told that they wouldn’t compensate me in any way and that it “isn’t our fault and not our problem.”
Haven’t flown them since.
Anonymous Coward
on 11 Jun 08Apple hands down on everything. Everything from their products, customer support, genius bars, to their receipts. Thoughtfully executed. Nothing compares to them on their attention to customer detail.
Dr. Wright
on 11 Jun 08Hands down, GoDaddy
Jeff
on 11 Jun 08Disney World. You heard me, Disney World.
At every turn, we had polite, helpful customer service. Any time we had a question or needed help, there was someone within 100 feet who could help us.
Large corporations usually try to figure out how to squeak by with the fewest possible people. Disney (home of many corporate evils) doesn’t. At least not at the parks.
Head to toe, an incredibly impressive operation.
Michelle
on 11 Jun 08Several weeks ago I ran out of cash at the Farmers’ Market. After sampling some goat cheese I told the vendor I’d definitely buy some the next week because I’d ran out of cash that day. She said “take it home today and pay me next week.”
It’s not surprising that a vendor at a Farmers’ Market would behave that way but it was still so refreshing to just be trusted as a consumer. It seems like so many businesses/vendors think consumers are “trying to get one over” on them. Naturally the goat cheese lady now has a loyal customer for life.
Erik
on 11 Jun 08Microsoft.
When our xbox 360 red-ringed we had to mail it off to be repaired. About half-way through the repair process I called their 1-800 customer service line and before I even spoke to anyone or input any information they told me the status of my repair. It was literally:
“Hi, thanks for calling, we see you have a repair pending and it’s status is __”.
Made me really happy.
Adam
on 11 Jun 08Despite being a cell phone company, T-Mobile has constantly impressed me. Latest example: I recently went way over my text message plan, and called in to up it. They volunteered to make the change retroactive so that I would not have to pay the overage fees, even though they were completely entitled to them. Every time I have called in, I was connected to a human almost immediately. They were very friendly, and they always thank me for my loyalty. I can tell that they value me as a customer.
As a result of this great customer service, I recommend T-Mobile to everyone I know. I stay loyal to them even though they do not have a 3G network in my area (which I’m dying for).
I don’t understand why more companies don’t realize that good customer service will benefit them in the long run. Especially in the age of the internet, where we can post our gripes for millions to see.
deejayspikes
on 11 Jun 08Rane corporation not only fixed my brand new mixer that stopped working, but did it while I was travelling to a gig two days after Christmas. To be sure I wasn’t out a mixer for my New Year’s gig, Kelly the customer service rep sent me her mixer to use. It turned out she didn’t need to, as mine made it back in time in perfect shape.
I still can’t believe they made it all work out, and Kelly saved the whole trip.
Greg
on 11 Jun 08Lunar Pages once gave me the best answer to “Can I do X to my server?” The answer was “Sure you do it like this, also I did it for you.”
karl
on 11 Jun 08I avoided calling Time Warner Cable in NYC to change a credit card for my account billing for about five months (and thus, also delayed cancelling a card I wanted to cancel).
When I finally called, I got an actual person within about 10 seconds, and like 90 seconds later my account had been switched, and we hung up.
I kinda stared in disbelief for a moment, then resumed my day.
terry
on 11 Jun 08apple:
the first time my laptop died (yes, it’s happened a few times), i called them on tuesday night. a box arrived on my doorstep to ship it, and it was picked up, on wednesday. i had it back friday at noon.
bmw:
while they charge a ton for it, having your car serviced by them is almost fun. they give you a loaner (so you get to try out the newest stuff they have to offer), they give you free coffee, free food, offer a theater, free wireless, massages, etc.
when i was checking out, the guy asked “is there anything else we can do to make your experience better?”
me: “nope. i think this is better than anybody else has ever done for me.”
him: “that’s the point.”
Joe Sak
on 11 Jun 08For me it was US Senator Debbie Stabenow. She is a Michigan Senator and her offices represented me when I needed to get a Passport to travel to Paris in 2005.
The Chicago Passport office refused to accept my Texas birth certificate, even though what the Texas Health Dept sent me was considered a legal document, it wasn’t recognized for some reason by the feds. They were just jerks about it, and I didn’t have time to fuck around.
So I called the Senator’s offices, told them what’s up, and 10 minutes later they called me back and said “It’s all taken care of, and Chicago is issuing you a passport as we speak”
That was the best ever.
JR
on 11 Jun 08The best customer support experience I’ve ever had has been with Threadless. DHL lost one of my shipments once. It was in limbo for well over a month. I sent an email to Threadless customer service explaining the situation and got an actual human response almost immediately that sounded genuinely sympathetic. They not only offered to send the shirt to me again, free of charge, they also gave me a $5 coupon for my troubles. That seems pretty generous, considering the fact that it was DHL’s fault.
A couple weeks later, the original package finally showed up. I followed up with Threadless to see if they wanted me to return the shirt, but they said I could keep it.
I don’t really buy from them anymore, but I know others who have had similar experiences.
Brad
on 11 Jun 08Enterprise Rent-a-car always treats me far better than other car rental companies.
Jay Garmon
on 11 Jun 08I’m going to have to say SanDisk. I had a USB thumb drive flake on me. I tried all the troubleshooting they recommend on their Web site. Called the help line, told the service rep first thing “I’ve gone through all the steps on the Web site. I’ve tried it on three PCs. It’s dead.”
Rep says no problem, asks for a serial number off the drive. Once he’s sure I’ve got an actual chunk of hardware, he emails me a packing slip to send in the dead drive and immediately ships me a replacement drive. No talking from a script. No requiring me to repeat all the troubleshooting steps to his satisfaction. No charge for anything. Took all of five minutes for the entire phone call.
Now, in all likelihood the serial number tipped the guy off that I had hardware from a bad manufacturing lot or something like that, but it was still refreshing to avoid the rigamaroll that usually plagues these calls.
The new drive arrived in a few days. I’ve had no trouble since.
Larry
on 11 Jun 08Newegg – went through the RMA process for an item that was DOA. Found they wanted me to pay to ship it back. I called up and the rep informed me that because I did it online there was no way to get a prepaid sticker out to me using the system. Before I could even protest she siad she would do it manually. Within an hour I had a label I could print. I have never had a bad experience with them.
Elite Blogger
on 11 Jun 08Hmmm, I actually cannot think of anything off the top of my head. But it does make you realize that we’re so focused on when things go wrong we barely notice when they go right.
It’s a real incentive to make sure that we deliver our services in such a way that people want to talk about them, in a good way.
Scott Williams
on 11 Jun 08Discount Tire. I’ve always had a pleasurable experience with them at any location. Best example was when I went in for a standard tire rotation. That went smoothly but when I got home, a hubcap was missing; so I guessed that it wasn’t tightened properly and fell off during the drive.
Called them up and told them, and they told me to come back in. They didn’t have anything to match my current caps, so they put 4 new hubcaps on, free of charge.
jm
on 11 Jun 08The Apple Store. I took a MacBook in to have the battery and optical drive replaced. Not only did they not hassle me over how broken it had to be, but I got a call 45 minutes later that the repair was done.
I picked up the laptop to see that while they were fixing the first 2 problems, they decided on their own that the keyboard and plate could stand to be replaced as well. (Lots of smudges, but it functioned fine.) Outstanding that they have their own standard of quality that they will meet, even if I don’t ask for it.
LJ
on 11 Jun 08InsaneJournal. It’s a Livejournal knockoff site - one of the best using the open source code - and the site admin, Squeaky, is one of the most attentive site admins I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing business with.
It’s gone through some rough times lately - the site host jerked us around for a bit, doing things like unexpectedly shutting down database servers - but Squeaky kept everyone updated via Twitter, answered questions openly and honestly, was 100% transparent and endlessly accessible.
He’s also written clear policies about contentious issues, not shied away from criticism, and taken a simple attitude: if the fundamental way he does business isn’t the way you want or expect, then IJ isn’t the journaling site for you. He’s happy to have you, but he doesn’t play to the middle, just to his strengths.
Braxton Beyer
on 11 Jun 08USAA by far has the vest service. They are a breath of fresh air. I call them for various reasons and they are always polite and extremely helpful. I rarely have to wait on hold. They are just hands down the best service I have ever gotten.
kelly
on 11 Jun 08I would have to say my best experience was with a place called “AmericInn”, a hotel chain in Oklahoma. I was driving through OK about 2am in a car I bought in Albuquerque, and I stopped at AmericInn to rest. I’d never heard of AmericInn, but it looked like a nice place. The lady at the front counter was having trouble with the computer, and couldn’t get the guy in front of me checked in. I was kind of in a daze, having been up since 5am the previous morning. Worried that I would pass out waiting for her, I headed out to my car, and took off in search of another hotel.
Later, I blogged about my trip back, and mentioned my experience at AmericInn.
About 4 days later, I received a letter (in the mail) from the Customer Service Director of the AmericInn chain, apologizing for the “trouble” I had (even though I hadn’t made an issue of it in my blog). He said they had just upgraded their computer system, and the lady I saw hadn’t been trained. He said he was going to get her some training as soon as possible, and he offered to have my family and me stay at an AmericInn for free any time we were in need of a hotel and we were in Oklahoma.
Amazing.
Drew Pickard
on 11 Jun 08Apple I had a problem with my Dell LCD flickering (Dell problem) and they assured me that it was a problem with Apple. Supposedly a video card problem, or a driver problem even though it was very, very clear to me that it was a hardware issue with the LCD itself.
The Dell support guys argued with me (argued!) and forcefully told me that it HAD to be a software problem since the self test window showed up and wasn’t flickering (how could I tell? it was tiny, dark little status screen and it was moving around the screen). I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing (they were based in India) or if they just had a bad day but they kept insisting it was Apple’s problem and that there was no way that they could help me.
So I call up Apple, hit a wrong key and get educational sales. I tell the guy I wanted support and I’m sorry but he says “Well, I might be able to help you anyway – what’s the problem?” So I tell him that my LCD is flickering slightly even though it’s brand new and I’m sure it’s Dell’s issue, they demanded I clear everything with Apple before I call them again. The guy says “Yeah, you’re totally right. It’s a hardware problem. But here’s what you can do to assure them that it’s not an Apple issue – just do a fresh install of the OS from the disk and you can then assure them that it’s not our software.” I thanked him profusely and called Dell back and they finally escalated it . . . and then I was dropped 2 times in a row while on hold.
I finally figured out that the backlight just flickered when the brightness setting was below 40, so I bumped it to 41 and it went away permanently.
Regardless, the Apple guy did the most important thing – went out of his way to help me with a problem that wasn’t Apple’s fault and reassured me that I wasn’t crazy!
Also #2
Zappo’s really likes to upgrade my delivery options for free . . . Love it.
David
on 11 Jun 08You’re right, good customer service is much rarely talked about.
I recently decided to jump into having a server of my own. I wanted to go with a Mac, but XServes are too costly for me to buy and certainly high on hosting costs. I decided to go with a Mac mini and sent it to Macminicolo.net. The first person I talked to was the owner of the company, he answered all my questions and was real easy to chat with straight from their site. It’s so nice to have a real personal hosting company.
Alexandre Testu
on 11 Jun 08Most Kebab restaurants in Paris. You get free tea within a week, they call you by your name within two. You haven’t got enough money to buy a drink? It’s ok, you can pay for most of it, take it.
The Colonel
on 11 Jun 08Dreamhost is an absolutely amazing hosting company. At Slantmouth, we’ve had very few problems, and every time we have, they’ve been friendly and incredibly responsive.
Joshua Blankenship
on 11 Jun 08Yesterday. I blocked out an hour after work to go get the oil changed in our car. There was a Shell Rapid Lube 2 miles down the road from the office.
We were in and out (and well-informed of the state of our vehicle) in less than 15 minutes, which was hardly enough time to enjoy the sparkling clean, air conditioned and well-stocked-with-fresh-magazines waiting room experience. The staff was turbo-courteous at every exchange, especially making sure to get our contact info to send us coupons and telling us they do free car washes on Wednesdays for customers.
Me? Now a Shell Rapid Lube customer. I’ll take the little things in consistency over the occasional amazing story.
Dan Woolley
on 11 Jun 08NOLA Restaurant in New Orleans in March 08. We made our reservation on OpenTable and the sommelier John Hoff had apparently made notes on our previous visit three years (!) earlier. When we walked in, they knew our names, remembered where we were from, our kids, and the topics we discussed last time. They generally just made us feel they were thankful for our return visit. We’d go just for the awesome food, but the staff adds so much to the ambiance just with their great attitude and attention to these details – we tell everyone we know to go visit.
mkb
on 11 Jun 08TireRack! I bought my last set of tires there, and accidentally purchased the wrong size for my vehicle. Salesperson noticed and called me to confirm. Lucky, because they were shipping my tires directly to an installer.
Jessica
on 11 Jun 08lately? American Express. I forgot to cancel my airline miles promotional card before the expensive annual service fee kicked in. But I called customer service anyway, and they changed my card to one that had no annual fee and refunded the full annual fee as well as the service charges I incurred because of the annual fee.
I’ve also had exceptional service with Zappos letting me return a pair of shoes that gave me horrible feet aches even though I’d worn them.
I wish I could agree with the other people who’ve said they had amazing experience with apple’s customer service—does it make a difference whether you pay extra to get the extended service contract pr sp,etjomg? They were totally willing to schedule me in an appointment to have a genious look at my broken ipod shuffle at no charge (except my time, so far it was great service). But then when I got there, the genious said my shuffle was out of warranty, and they said I’d have to buy an (almost as expensive as the shuffle itself) extended warranty contract for it if I wanted them to fix it :(
I’ve also had good experiences with customer service with my hosting company bluehost.com, they always give prompt replies to emails or phone calls, and are very good about communicating with customers if there’s issues affecting performance and how they’re resolving them.
Tom
on 11 Jun 08My mother bought a backpack 2 years ago while she was on vacation visiting me from Europe to California. 2 weeks later, a zipper broke.
This week, she’s visiting me again, still using the same backpack. Yesterday, we ended up in the same store, Sports Basement, and she told her story.
No ticket or other proof of purchase, of course, but the sales rep didn’t hesitate for a second and she walked out with a brand new backpack just a few minutes later.
Most US companies are great when it comes to return policies, but I still didn’t expect this.
rjm
on 11 Jun 08I enjoyed a good experience with Geico yesterday.
The 6-month term on my car insurance is ending, and they called to check if I had received my paperwork in the mail and if wanted to renew it. That seems pretty standard. The part that I didn’t expect was that they went through a series of simple questions to see if I qualified for further discounts.
Even though they were selling me something, it really didn’t feel like that. It felt like they were calling with my interests in mind. That’s the part that I find most remarkable.
Perhaps this is why they have such a high satisfaction rate for their customer service.
Chance Bliss
on 11 Jun 08It just happened an hour ago. I purchased TopStyle 3.5 from Newsgator. I played around with it for awhile and realized it wasn’t for me (I can’t part with Homesite – great HTML editor). I replied to the order confirmation email explained the situation and within 30 minutes I received an email stating that they would be happy to refund my money. No questions asked. Great customer service.
Jeff G.
on 11 Jun 08Vicious Cycles. I recently bought a new Vicious mountain bike frame off ebay, it was used and a few years old. In the course of building the bike up I came across a few things that were concerning (clicking in the bushings etc. [it’s a full suspension bike]). I called Vicious to try and get a little information about my specific 3 year old frame. The person who answered the phone (yes, human-beings answer the phones) listened to me and then informed me that he didn’t know enough about what I was asking to answer me. He took my number and promised to have someone who did understand call me back. 15 minutes later Carl called back. Carl is the guy whos name appears on the downtube of the bike. Carl is the guy who designed and built the actual frame that I own. He spent about 20 minutes on the phone with me answering all my mundane and (probably) dumb questions. At the end of the conversation he told me to call back and ask for him anytime I had anymore questions. Pretty sweet when you call and get the actual designer of a high end product to answer your questions! Granted Vicious Cycles is a small outfit but they are obviously committed to their buyers. If you’re in the market to get a new bike, I’d check them out! You won’t be disappointed.
Jeff Putz
on 11 Jun 08Was in Vegas for Mix08 this March, and on the last day I was in town, that Saturday, I got sick. In the next few days I’d learn it was a sinus infection so bad and so painful that they had to put me on Vicodin. But earlier that day, before my body started turn on me, I bought Blue Man Group tickets in the morning, for that evening’s show.
I was doing the whole sweat/shiver cycle thing all evening, but I was hell bent on going to that 10pm show. 15 minutes before the start, I couldn’t even sit up. My limbs were falling asleep and I was not seeing things right. I had to get out and find a place to be horizontal.
My fiance walked me out to the lobby, where I crashed on a bench. While a security guard brought me water, Diana looked for a manager to see what they could do. The house manager not only refunded our non-refundable tickets, he invited us back any time to see the show on him. That was way above and beyond.
Will
on 11 Jun 08Herman Miller sent a service guy, the day after I called, to fix a broken Aeron chair that required a new part 10 years after I originally bought the chair.
And didn’t charge anything.
Joe Grossberg
on 11 Jun 08I ordered running shoes from Amazon; it took two weeks to get an email saying they were out of stock and refunding my order. I then ordered the exact same sneakers from Zappos, with standard shipping, and they were at my apartment two days later.
What a contrast. I have literally ordered hundreds of items from Amazon previously. This was my first experience with Zappos. Guess where I’m buying shoes from now on?
Tony Edgecombe
on 11 Jun 08Pair web hosting, they have never taken longer than 15 minutes to respond to a query.
Dina Amadril
on 11 Jun 08Grohe – the faucet company. My Dad had dropped a piece of the faucet during construction of my kitchen (into the garbage disposal). I was crying cause it was a $459 faucet.
Called Grohe – told them we broke it, they still sent a new piece free of charge as long as I didn’t mind her sharing the story of our foolishness with other Grohe employees.
Marriott Suites in Costa Mesa had a laser focus on making you happy during my last trip. Almost fanatical, I was offered unlimited bottles of water, and asked about my stay by every employee. It almost got to the point you just wanted to be left alone.
Aaron
on 11 Jun 08Chic-fil-a
all the other fast food places should take some notes from Chic-fil-a
i often go into Chic-fil-a to order for my whole family. the Chic-fil-a employees almost always recognize when i have my hands full and they gladly offer to help me carry my food and drinks to my car
Adam
on 11 Jun 08Ritz Carlton. Used to travel for business and they overbooked the hotel one week with the Saudi Royal Family who they could not kick out. I arrived late that night to find out this news and they drove me to another hotel where I stayed one evening. The following night when they did have room they upgraded me to a suite and I received a personal note from the manager. But the best part was in the weeks and months after that when I continued to stay there – every Monday evening I checked in after my flight and there was either a bottle of wine with fresh fruit and cheese waiting for me or milk on ice with warm chocolate chip cookies. Very impressive.
Tim
on 11 Jun 08USAA, every time.
FredS
on 11 Jun 08Holy shit @Will. That’s amazing.
Lally
on 11 Jun 08Two vendors, the only ones I buy from anymore. In both cases, they make the whole stack, and it’s only one call to make.
1. Sun First, my machine comes with standard on-site 3 year support. When I had a bad second ethernet port, I called them up. They called me back with the question “Do you need me to drive in from Richmond today or can we do it a little later in the week?” I’m 4-5 hrs from Richmond. I told them to come in whenever it was convenient, no hurry, I wasn’t using that ethernet port. They come in, at my home, and swap out my motherboard.
Compared to other vendors (Gateway, you sons of bitches, I’m looking at you), it’s one hell of a standard level of service.
When I called in later for a harmless error message, the rep essentially stalked me to get it resolved.
2. Apple Everyone else here covers the gamut pretty well. The best thing I can say about Apple is that when you call, you expect a resolution. Unlike my prior vendors, I don’t expect to play some back & forth game with some jackass who wants me to reformat my HDD over a stuck mouse button.
Greg
on 11 Jun 08Breakaway Honda, Greenville, SC. Every time I take my Hondas to be service it is a good experience. But the last time, my wife took her van in for a screw in the tire. It was in the sidewall, not repairable. They replaced it and one other tire that was worn.
They could have sold her an entire set, but they did not.
Also, buying her van from Geno was a good experience too.
KC
on 11 Jun 08Chase ATMs with the “deposit with no envelope” feature. The ATMs will attempt to read the amount directly off the check and also scans the check on your receipt.
It was probably even more of a great customer experience since I had spent 2 minutes searching for deposit envelopes in the lobby beforehand, then realized they aren’t doing that anymore.
Ric
on 11 Jun 08Our rails-specialist web-hosts, brightbox, have been great. I even blogged about just how great they are a couple of months ago on our company blog.
mkb
on 11 Jun 08@KC: the Bank of America ATM in my building does that now as well.
Laura
on 11 Jun 08BT (UK.)
Went to find out about their broadband options and was presented with a pop up chat window asking if I wanted to talk to an online rep.
I selected ‘Yes’ and was promptly connected to really helpful rep who answered my extensive probing questions within 20 seconds each, with comprehensive answers and was incredibly polite.
Such incredible service early on makes me feel more confident about signing up with them.
David Demaree
on 11 Jun 08This is a two-parter — a single experience which demonstrates excellence and total crapitude in one go.
THE CRAP: GrubHub. Leaving aside the fact that GrubHub’s over-cute web interface is frustrating to use, they have an unfortunate habit of adding new restaurants to their online ordering system without asking them first. Last year they added Fat Willy’s Rib Shack, who called me two hours after I placed a GrubHub order to tell me it wouldn’t be filled, because they had no idea what GrubHub was. I complained to GrubHub and they apologized and sent me a free t-shirt. Which was nice, but did nothing to address my actual problem.
THE GREAT: When Piece—a pizzaria/brewery here in Chicago—expanded their delivery/carry-out business earlier this year, naturally GrubHub opted them into the online ordering system. They called me almost immediately after GrubHub’s system sent the fax to explain that they, too, didn’t know they’d been added and didn’t plan to serve GrubHub online orders. But they were going to send over my pizza anyway. It arrived earlier than expected (40 minutes, not 80) and when it got here, the driver told me it was on the house because of the confusion about GrubHub.
So Piece didn’t just own up to their own screw-up like champions, they took responsibility for something a third party did and turned what could have been a sad night with no pizza into a superlative customer service experience. (And got me recommending Piece delivery to everyone I know.)
Eric
on 11 Jun 08Nearly every Chick-fil-a I’ve been to. I know it’s odd mentioning a fast food joint, but I seem to always be really pleased with the service of their staff – and for a fast food place, that says a lot.
I sold my last car to a guy who worked for their corporate HQ here in Atlanta, and asked him if they had a special training program. He said no, and surprised me by saying that each Chick-fil-a was individually owned and run, with their own employee training and personnel management. His thoughts were something like “We search out good people to franchise. People enthusiastic about running a solid business… most of the owners actually work in the store and take real ownership in it”. It was a nice little lesson, I thought.
Lee
on 11 Jun 08IBM’s Thinkpad support was amazing back when mine started failing about 2 years ago. I called up their support number at 11PM and was instantly put through to someone. I briefly described my problem and requested a new touchpad. I had it in my mailbox from DHL the next morning. I did the same thing for the keyboard a few months later as well.
All this took place well over 2 years after purchasing the laptop. It is refreshing to not be treated like a stupid child on the phone, though I can’t say it has happened since.
Natasha L.
on 11 Jun 08One that stands out for me was Humanized, before Enso was free.
I had some pretty strange issues with my Enso installation that were persistent and difficult to resolve. What really impressed me was that every time I reported a new issue, I quickly got a personal and candid response. In some cases, the response actually came from one of the developers. While I was frustrated that the software wasn’t working right, it did help that they admitted that mine was the worst case they’ve seen and all their tools seemed to have failed in my case.
My favorite quote from that whole frustrating experience was this, from an Enso developer:
“I apologize for even suggesting that you do some of these things; for preference I would sit down in front of your computer and fix it for you, but I can’t really do that.”
Justin Reese
on 11 Jun 08SuddenLink (cable provider): Called to tell them I was going to switch to AT&T DSL unless they were able to match the price, and without a single resistance they dropped my price, keeping the speed the same.
Apple, of course: as painful as receiving a DOA unit is (even if it was a refurb), Apple made the replacement experience damn near a dream. No wait time on the phone; knowledgeable and intuitive support staff; overnight replacement delivery. Stellar.
Jon Moss
on 11 Jun 08Howies – UK clothes company – real people selling great clothes, and they have consistently helped me out when I had problems or queries.
Dorset Cereals – letter with vouchers and emails after finding a piece of wood in my cereal!
Tumi – replaced an item no questions asked after 2 years.
Timberland – not recently, but when I was travelling round the world. I had a pair of the classic boots which I had owned for over a year. I got to Sydney and they were starting to split badly down the side. No hassles, straight swap for a new pair. Cannot argue with that!
marisa
on 11 Jun 08iRobot replaced our VERY-out-of-warranty Roomba’s battery – without our requesting it – for free. They didn’t charge us for shipping, and didn’t request that we ship anything to them.
Chad
on 11 Jun 08I bought a bike from Valencia Cyclery a few weeks ago. I went in, saw the bike I wanted, rode it around the block, and bought it. No pressure to get a higher end model, friendly and helpful attitudes all around. But the really great customer service came about a week after I bought the bike. I was riding over to an appointment when someone swerved out in front of me. I tried to dodge ‘em and ended up in the muni tracks. Went down hard. Bike was a wreck. Later that day I took the bike back to Valencia, told ‘em exactly what had happened, pointed out all the damage, and fully expected them to tell me the bike needed a couple hundred dollars of repairs… Instead, they said they weren’t going to mention anything about an accident, and would cover all the repairs “under warranty”. Spectacular.
Apple gets honorable mention here… I seem to just have bad luck with their products. I’ve gone through probably 8 iPhones, and countless repairs to my MacBook Pro. Every time I have to take the phone in, they ask me what’s wrong with it, and almost every time just swap it out w/o even trying to verify the issue. They actually understand that I have more important stuff to do than stand at the genius bar for 4 hours while they try to reproduce intermittent issues with the touch screen.
Peter Urban
on 11 Jun 08EngineYard Unbelievable competent, responsive and driven to please for a hosting provider. Not the cheapest but a pleasure to work with and worth every penny.
Ekerete
on 11 Jun 08Dell has been awesome with their customer service (I’ve had two Dell laptops).
There was even this one time I spilt water on my keyboard and got someone come over with a replacement the very next day. Impressive!
cubiclegrrl
on 11 Jun 08Best Western, NYC, 1995: We’ve driven from Toronto the night before, and spent the day museum crawling. We’re pretty strung out from being awake for so darned long. So of course every place we stop is either full-up, or wants an outrageous amount for a room that they can’t even guarantee is non-smoking. We stop at an ice cream parlor and start thumbing through the Yellow Pages of their phone book, quickly realizing that we don’t have the faintest clue where we are in relation to the motels listed.
Husband gets the idea of calling Best Western’s 800 number, and asks where the nearest one is. The lady on the other end asks (apologetically!!!) “Well, there’s one about fifteen minutes away across the Tappen Zee bridge, is that okay?” We sort of blinked, stunned for a minute. Then she gave us what turned out to be quite reliable driving directions, and we checked into the room she had reserved for us about twenty minutes later.
Michael Clark
on 11 Jun 08Last week my Canon Powershot A70 (purchased in August 2003, over 4,600 photos taken) died, or at least had a heart attack. The display was fuzzy, like stretched, and pink shaded. While pricing out new cameras, I stumbled across this page which gives details of Canon’s handling of this problem (CCD Image Sensor Advisory). I called their 800#, got a real person seconds after maneuvering through their menu, she walked me through resetting the camera, confirmed the problem, and I’ve already received pre-paid shipping information so I can return the camera to Canon so they can repair it for free. Very unexpected, and so far, I’m thrilled with Canon’s support.
Jason
on 11 Jun 08Southwest Airlines. I fly Southwest as much as possible when I fly, for several reasons.
In general, flying in the U.S. has really become a “bus in the air” experience—airlines continually have to cut costs to stay competitive, and they cram as many people on each plane as they can.
Most airlines I’ve been on other than Southwest are pretty much the same—dour flight attendants who act as if your mere presence is a huge burden (much less asking for anything), charging for everything, etc.
But I really look forward to flying Southwest. The staff are uniformly friendly and helpful and appear happy to be there. They are clearly encouraged to show off their personality and their talents (flight attendants regularly serenade the plane with cheesy Southwest-related song parodies as the plane taxies to the terminal after landing). Sometimes they give away drinks for free, for no good reason. And they’re pretty informative with a minimum of b.s.
Plus, their frequent flyer program is, I think, generous and structured very simply (8 flights [and/or credits from using their credit card] = free trip).
They continue to tweak their boarding procedures - now you basically board in the order you check in, except frequent business travelers get to go to the front of the line - but overall I think it’s effective and not as annoying as people subverting the “board by row” process (or having to jockey for position in the A, B, or C lines).
They don’t serve every route I’d like in the country (it’d be nice if they went to Minneapolis) but when I can, I fly Southwest.
As for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I too have had a really good experience with most of their offices as well. And they pick you up, which only makes sense since you’re renting a car from them! I hear they’re pretty tough on their employees, though.
Rebecca Murphey
on 11 Jun 08We had a Bank of America/AAA credit card with a 0% rate on cash advances, and so we went to the Bank of America web site and did what we thought was a cash advance, essentially transferring several thousand dollars to our checking account to pay for some home improvements. When we got our statement, that money showed up as being at a fairly high percentage rate instead. Turns out that a cash advance has to be done over the phone or with one of those checks the credit card company sends you—what we did was technically … something else.
I’m the one who gets to talk to customer service folk, and so I made the call, expecting to basically beg that the transferred money at least be charged at a lower rate. I explained the situation to the customer service person, and she asked me to hold. While I was on hold, my partner was quickly looking up the rates on our other cards, thinking we could threaten to transfer the balance if they wouldn’t help us out. We were girded for a fight.
Two minutes later the rep returned. The money would be charged at 0%, and was there anything else she could help us with? I said no, slightly stunned—we actually got out of a potentially unpleasant situation even better off than we expected, a far cry from so many other customer service experiences I’ve had.
Richard Smith
on 11 Jun 08I have to add two related to my (sadly, broken) Digital Italia coffee machine, made by Saeco and distributed under the Starbucks brand in the US.
1. the Starbucks coffee machine service people. Amazing knowledge of complicated (automatic espresso) machine and such excellent response that I called back to speak to a supervisor to commend them.
2. The Saeco US service people. Through an odd chain of circumstances I ended up with the Starbucks machine, but living in Canada, it is not fully serviced by Saeco Canada. I had to call Ohio when the problem was beyond both Starbucks and my local Saeco repair shop. Saeco US was, if anything, even better than the Starbucks people on the phone. Truly amazing. As an example, while poring over the web site while on the phone, the CSR offered to email me a PDF so we could look at the same detailed images at the same time. She did so, from her personal account in the company, and we exchanged several other emails after that. She was knowledgable, forthright, and creative – suggesting other solutions to my problem and even referencing her own experience with the product.
I was astonished. Perhaps Americans are used to this level of customer service but I have never in my life had anything approaching this from a Canadian company.
If you ever have a coffee machine question, I recommend “Becky” from their Ohio telephone centre. A wonder.
...r
Joshua Emmons
on 11 Jun 08Netflix. I got a broken DVD 3 times in a row and checked the support site. Their wizard couldn’t answer my question but gave me a number to call and short code to give to the support person on the other end of the line.
Now I’m used to giving “trouble tickets” to support people and then having to completely re-explain everything to them. Not with Netflix. I gave the guy my code, and he was like, “Oh. Ok Mr. Emmons. I see your problem and I think I just read about this. One second.” Literally less than a minute later he gets back to me with a confirmed report that that particular DVD is made of inferior plastic that shatters easily.
“A new version with better plastic has been released, but there are still a lot of the old ones in the wild,” he told me. “You have two choices. Watch other things and come back to this in a month or two, or keep requesting it until you get one of the new ones.”
I told him I’d like to see it soon. It was the second part of a 2 disk set.
“I understand. I tell you what, I’m going to give you an extra slot on your account for a month. You keep requesting this disk with that slot for a month. If you don’t get a working one by then, give us a call and we’ll work it out. In the mean time you can use the rest of your slots like normal.”
That was it. I the email confirming my extra rental before he said “goodbye”.
I’d like to highlight what made this an exceptional experience:
•It was short. From first starting the support wizard to ending my call, it couldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes.
•I was only “talked” to two people. The automated support wizard on the site and the guy on the phone. No transfers to billing or escalations needed.
•It was seemless. The transition from the web to the phone could not have been more smooth.
•It was definitive. The man knew exactly what was wrong, explained it to me, and had options ready for me.
That’s the type of customer service experience everyone should be striving to provide.
Annis
on 11 Jun 08I wanted a very special danish table and I came across dkVogue and sent an email asking for the price of this piece – although never expecting a return in a week or more (which is kinda normal in the furniture business with no prices visible online and the like). I got an email a day later and we’ve since been in contact over the course of tens of emails.
What really stunned me: I asked about VAT (importing into Europe) and she even looked that up, found international shipping rates and a customs broker. Man, gotta tell you, she went way over of what she essentially had to do or find out. Recommending that one immensely.
David O.
on 11 Jun 08Very good customer service experience with Macy’s and Costco.
Nicholas O. Simmons
on 11 Jun 08The people who made TapeDeck have been on top of the support game, in addition to having made a great app.
Charles
on 11 Jun 08Sun Microsystems. The effort they go through to get me the information and support I need is incredible. I feel guilty because everything I’m using is free and open source. I’m not paying them a cent anywhere, and still they over deliver.
How far do they bend over if I actually to pay for something?
Todd Webb
on 11 Jun 08Sometimes you find a gem of a local company that just get’s it. In my neighborhood (Wheaton, IL) that is a little organic lawn care company who’s owner Bill provides fantastic customer service. As I blogged in April: “he took the time to talk with me about what he found in my yard, any changes he recommended, and any tips on taking care of my shrubs and bushes. He didn’t seem anxious to run off to another house and I think he would have given me a personal half-hour class on organic lawn care and gardening had I asked.”
Nathaniel
on 11 Jun 08Apple.
“Hi. I bought an iPhone less than 90 days ago, and one of the earbuds is intermittently shorting out. Can you help me with this problem?” “Sure!”, the tech support guy says, and then asks me for my name, iPhone serial number, and a credit card to place a $29 hold on my account “OK,” he continues, “you should get your new headset tomorrow. Just mail us your old headset back within 20 days and you’ll be set!”
My headset showed up before noon the next day.
Nate Rosenberg
on 11 Jun 08USAA
They’ve managed to deliver high-quality customer service on their website, when I ask a question via email, and when I speak to a customer service rep on the phone.
They get the difference between hospitality and service. From when I use their online banking every day to when I filed a claim after totaling my car, to handling a dispute I had over some charges, they have always turned what could be a frustrating experience into a pleasant one.
Devan
on 11 Jun 08For me it is Savvas Footwear which is a small, family owned shoe shop in our small town. About a year ago, I bought a pair of black work shoes which were nice and comfortable, however, after about 9 months of wear, they had developed cracks across the sole which were getting steadily worse.
So, I went back to the shop purely to buy a new pair, but when the owner/manager noticed the cracks in the old ones while I was trying on the new ones, he insisted on taking them back and giving me the new pair for nothing!
Any shop who stands by their product after a year of hard use wins my business for life!
Addi
on 11 Jun 08I bought a mattress today after going to the shop with my better half and having our postures and pressure points measured.
The atmosphere was open, positive + and the rep added an appropriate amount of character into the mix. It turned into a bit of a sales pitch, but since it wasn’t forced, it wasn’t uncomfortable.
The reason we eventually decided to buy from them was that we felt the rep took our situation/needs into consideration because making the pitch.
Addi
on 11 Jun 08p.s. the company is a local retailer, “Rúmgott”.
AhmedF
on 11 Jun 08Vudu – was having problems with their service (my system’s HD had gone wrong), and they contacted me to see if they could help. In under 2 minutes they had a replacement on its way, and had it at my house the very next day.
Statrixbob
on 12 Jun 08Apple Store – I bought a black Macbook (Intel) back in 2006 and unfortunately got a lemon instead of an Apple. Actually it hasn’t been that bad as I have other laptops and computers, but this one has been in for at least three major repairs, two requiring new hard drives.
Last week I took it in again because the Superdrive wasn’t verifying anything that I tried to burn. Once again I was told it would be 7-10 days, but that it would fixed for free under Applecare.
I went to lunch with a friend and after lunch I noticed a message on my phone. It was from the Apple Store Genius I’d worked with asking me to call him back. He’d looked over the service record for that computer and decided that it warranted a replacement.
The replacement turned out to be the same model, which is to say the 2008 version – three times the hard drive space, twice the memory, double the battery life, so on and so forth.
I’m not suggesting that giving me a new computer was above and beyond, but the service the young man delivered was superb. He didn’t have to go the extra mile, but he did and for that, I’m grateful!
Warren Benedetto
on 12 Jun 08CarsDirect.com
Buying a car is one of the worst experiences a human being can have, short of getting hit repeatedly in the genitals with a ball peen hammer.
After being lied to, manipulated by, and laughed at by half the car salesmen in L.A., I decided to look online. I read a great review of CarsDirect’s service on TechCrunch, so I figured I’d give it a try.
I basically knew what I wanted - make, model, features, etc. - so I put in an order on their site. Within an hour, a rep called me and went over my order to make sure he had it right, and to go over some additional options.
Not upselling me … just making helpful suggestions like, “if you get x instead of y, it’ll save you about a $1,000” or “don’t get that pre-installed, it’ll be cheaper as aftermarket.”
After about 30 minutes on the phone, he said he’d call me back in an hour. A half-hour later, he called back with three options having the make, model, and price I wanted. The only problem was color. There was one with the color I wanted, but it was at a dealership about two hours away.
Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but my wife was 9 months pregnant, and was about to give birth any day. I wasn’t about to drive that far, with or without her. I explained this, and the rep said, “Let me see what I can do.”
He called back 5 minutes later and said that the dealer would deliver the car to my house, and that he had talked them into added an alarm at no charge (something I had asked for, but he said he probably couldn’t swing).
He asked when I’d like the car delivered. I said, “you tell me.” He said, “how about tomorrow?” Sure enough, 9AM the next morning, a shiny new car pulled up to my house. We did the paperwork at my kitchen table, I shook the dealer’s hand, and I was done.
Total time from placing order to receiving new car: 14 hours. Plus, I saved about 20% on the price, and got all the features I wanted, and got a color that was otherwise unavailable in my city.
I swear to God - 100% true - I got choked up when thanking the CarsDirect rep for his help. It was actually a PLEASURE buying that car. I felt like he was on my side, a teammate helping me find the best deal on exactly what I wanted (as opposed to a regular dealer, where I feel like I’m being anally raped for the privilege of paying a 30% premium on last year’s model.)
CarsDirect: Best. Company. EVER.
Emily
on 12 Jun 08Last year, I got new car insurance through Geico. The representative I worked with (and normally, I would say “dealt with” when it comes to customer service, but here we were actually working together) was friendly, funny, knowledgeable, and informative. I don’t think I’ve ever used those four words to describe a customer service representative in any other circumstance. And when I move six months later and my insurance went up, I called them back and got another rep about whom I would use the same descriptors, despite the fact that she couldn’t do much about the rate hike. I have to admit, even though I should probably be shopping around for better insurance rates, the thought of dealing with agents at other companies scares me a little, and I’d like to think that they pull out all the stops with this great service when some jerk rear ends you.
Patrick
on 12 Jun 08Flew Virgin America.
There was an error with their system and I called customer service. The honored the price for the First Class upgrade, and told me to send along the error. The representative spent 15 minutes on the phone with me, and spent time to clear it through a supervisor.
Tiffany King
on 12 Jun 08I am 25 years old and own my own children’s store, and am a one woman shop, so I am the customer service, but I still wanted to share a positive experience too.
One of my customers placed an order online for a product that happen to sell out in my store that very day, and basically at the same time, it was a doll that came in two sizes: small and large, and she ordered the small one which I had run out of, so I contacted her and asked if it would be okay to send her the larger doll for the same price as the smaller one since this was my mistake.
She was so grateful, and has been a frequent online shopper ever since then! It was my first mishap, and instead of telling her sorry it is sold out, I took the loss, but gained many additional sales, and really the best part, the respect of the customer.
I know its strange to be giving myself kudos but I actually learned a lot through that experience and realized what the most important aspect to a sale was.
Brad Fults
on 12 Jun 08Fog Creek Software. Specifically, when trying to use Copilot to help my grandmother remotely, there was a bug in the Copilot client that caused it to run unbearably slowly. After a few attempts I emailed Fog Creek support.
They refunded my money immediately, took responsibility for the issue and told me they would notify me when they had a fix in place. Later on they did notify me that it was fixed. I was busy, so didn’t get around to testing it again until just about a month ago.
I connected up to my grandmother’s computer and installed some new software for her without any problems whatsoever. The best part: Copilot is now free on weekends, so it didn’t end up costing me anything!
Brilliant.
Dillon
on 12 Jun 08Zippo. When my grandfather passed away, I was given his old lighter. It was 50 years old at the time, completely unusable but the casing was in good shape. It sat on a dresser for about a year, until I decided to try to get it fixed. I checked Zippo’s site, they fully back all of their products for life. I sent in my lighter, and about three weeks later, got it back, in perfect working order, it had been cleaned, the hinge replaced, and a new innard put in it, all free of charge, all I paid was the shipping to Zippo, they paid for shipping it back. Any company that would stand by their products, even for such old ones, was a very refreshing thing.
Eva
on 12 Jun 08Once I bought a pearl necklace as a gift to my mom from a small online retailer. When the package was delivered I found a handwritten note on a real letter paper. A shop owner wrote to me, asking to inform her if necklace was too long/too short so she could fix it. Dont remember the shop name, but it was in Scandinavia few years ago. A handwritten note, waw! It was like fresh air in e-mail based communication.
Kevin Godby
on 12 Jun 08My best support experience has definitely been with Vircom.
A number of years ago, I worked at a small local ISP. I was the network admin and also handled most of the tech support calls. We used Vircom’s Windows-based email server.
Someone at MCI Worldcom had upgraded the software on their routers and ended up knocking their entire backbone offline. So none of my customers could get on the Internet. I had been on the phone all morning explaining the situation to our understandably upset customers. One of the phone calls I received was from Yves of Vircom. I was subscribed to many of the Vircom discussion lists and he noticed that the messages being sent to me were bouncing.
I immediately apologized for the bounced messages and explained the situation. He understood and informed me that he hadn’t called because the bounced messages were causing him problems, but because he wanted to make sure that our mail server wasn’t the problem.
That’s right: he saw the bounced messages and thought that our email server may be having problems so he called me to offer tech support.
Shane McCracken
on 12 Jun 08I’ve used LivingDot.com to host a couple of blogs. Extremely good product only bettered by their customer service. I think I get particularly fast service in the UK morning as the night shift bored by nothing to do for hours, burst into action at the site of my email!
Gayle Bird
on 12 Jun 08I LOVE this post and comments thread. Man. Positivity, whoo!
I think the local Volkswagen dealership gets my vote. They go out of their way to explain exactly what they did (or needs doing) to my car, they drive me and pick me up, and every year they’ll clean it, inside and out, for free.
Vervehosting is another one. Christine never fails to answer any questions I might have for tech support.
Matt Radel
on 12 Jun 08Apple. I recently had battery issues with my iPhone so I went to the Apple store. I expected a fight, so I armed myself with all the facts before going in (how many times I’d restored it, when it started to lose power, etc.).
I went up to the Genius Bar and got out “Dude, I’m having battery problems with my phone…” and the guy stopped me, disappeared into the back and came out with a brand new iPhone. They even took my anti-glare film off my old one and slapped it on the new one.
Total time in the store: 10 minutes. Questions asked: 0. That’s an awesome experience.
meredith
on 12 Jun 08Years and years ago, I ordered a cellphone for about $250 from Amazon. I didn’t like it, and decided to return it. I sent it back using their method at the time (I’m not sure if this is still their procedure)—put it in a box, shipped it back, and three weeks later, they hadn’t acknowledged receipt. They called me up and when I told them I had sent it back, they said, “OK” and told me they’d credit my card. No asking where I shipped it from, when I shipped it, the shipping date, or anything else. They ate $250 just like that. They’re the only company I never hesitate to contact with anything.
Bill
on 12 Jun 08Royer microphones – free repair of the mic over a year after buying it. The owner even took it home and personally tested.
Rode microphones – sent me a replacement cable when I called and said I broke mine – no cost, no verification I even owned the mic
Steinway: a studio boss of mine bought a grand piano close to to a century old and had it shipped back to Steinway to be refurbished. It now is a beautiful instrument again and is repeatedly called “the best piano I’ve ever played” by pianists. Can you imagine having such a great company that your product is returned for repair 100 years later and you can do it?
Emily
on 12 Jun 08Midwest Airlines goes above and beyond for their customers and does it with style.
I was running REALLY late for my flight back to Milwaukee from Orlando the other day. In fact, I arrived to check in my bag only 25 minutes before departure. Bad me. I had my reasons, but still.
The man checking my bag was very friendly, and while I had to sign a “voluntary separation from my bag” agreement, he said he’d do what he could to get my bag on that plane. He called down to baggage and I hoped for the best.
I ran to the gate, stepped right in line with the others, boarded the plane, and settled in my comfy leather window seat. Would the bag arrive? WELLL…..sure enough. There it was when I arrived in Milwaukee.
I was a very happy girl.
Plus, even though we have to pay for our food on planes today, it was DELICIOUS and was ACTUAL REAL FOOD (i was starving) and it came with warm chocolate chip cookies and yummy Alterra coffee.
Customer for life. I will try to fly them whenever I can.
Benjy
on 12 Jun 08While the bad experiences certainly outnumber the good, I’ve got a couple:
- Went to Sushi Mura (near Southport & Addison in Chicago) recently with my fiance, her parents and my uncle. We used to go there monthly but because she’s now in grad school (less free time, less money) it had been a while since we’ve been in there—probably 8 or 9 months. The owner saw us, said she hadn’t seen us in a while and was so glad we came in, and gave us a free bottle of sake because it was an honor to meet our family.
- similar to the farmers market story above, some friends and I once stopped into Stanley’s Fruit Stand on a Satuday nigth after deciding we needed to make mojitos and needed mint. We raced over there and got there about 10:02, after they had technically closed but were still in the process of closing. They’d shut down the registers for the night, but they gave us the mint and said to pay the next time. They were actually amazed when I tried to do just that a week or so later and said not to worry about it…
Mike
on 12 Jun 08I got a free extra shot of espresso in my latte today at Starbucks.
J Lane
on 12 Jun 08I live on a really small island (~1000 people), so it’s pretty much a case of everyone knows everyone. Because of that, it’s easy to find good customer service experiences every day. The local bakery only accepts cash, but they realize that not everyone is always carrying cash, so if you’re ever “caught off guard”, their attitude has always been “just pay us later”.
Eric J. Gruber
on 12 Jun 08Michele Balistreri at Brik Software (http://briksoftware.com) is amazing.
I ordered their PDFKey Pro software and had used it without a hitch, until one day it stopped working. Our correspondence lasted a little over a day, but Michele was patient with me and helped to get it working (a tmp folder was missing for some reason).
I liked that I was communicating with a person who didn’t treat me like an idiot.
The irony is, I use PDFKey Pro to unlock PDF ebooks (so I don’t have to inconveniently type in my e-mail address each time I want to read it) that I purchase from some vendors who automatically assume all purchasers of ebooks are thieves.
Megan
on 12 Jun 08Recentlly I was in a clothing store (Jacob) looking for a specific item. The sales girl went out of her way to find anything in the store that might work for what I needed, even going into the back and getting out some things that weren’t on display yet. When none of those items worked, she suggested another store in the mall that might have the right thing. Even though I didn’t buy anything on that trip I’ll definitely make a point of shoping there again.
Lately I’ve been making a point of thanking employees for exceptional customer service. I’m sure they feel underappreciated a lot of the time.
Mike
on 12 Jun 08Progressive Insurance.
My car was hit in a parking lot earlier this week. I got the other driver’s insurance information and a police report (long story). I filed a claim online. A rep called me within minutes, asked a few questions, and called the closest service center for me and setup an appointment and a rental. Total time for all of this was about 15 minutes.
I dropped off my car at the shop, and all the paperwork was already pre-filled for me to sign, and a rental car was waiting for me already. Total time before I was on my way, about 10 minutes.
And just now, a Progressive rep called me just to let me know that everything was on schedule and to confirm that I was satisfied with the rental.
This whole process has been completely painless.
Matt Lincoln Russell
on 12 Jun 08powernotebooks.com, three times over.
My puppy chewed through my laptop’s power cord (thankfully unplugged). I sent them an email asking if I could buy half the power adapter, or if I had to buy the whole thing (~$80). They called me over lunch the next day and said “Is it alright if we just send you a new one for free?”
My sister also has a laptop from them and the hard drive died. The phone call went exactly like this: Me: The hard drive is dead; it says [error message] when it tries to boot. Tech: OK, I’ll put a new hard drive in the mail today, just stick the old one in the box and send it back. Done.
My friend got a laptop from them on my recommendation and he had a problem with the memory. After calling customer service and them saying they would send new memory, they called back later with this to say: “We were all talking about your problem over lunch today (they talked about his problem over lunch??) and figured out that the Kingston memory could be the problem with this model, so we’re going to upgrade you to the (significantly more expensive) Crucial memory for free. That should be out to you tomorrow.” Needless to say, we was impressed.
Best tech support I have ever had.
Also, I’d be remiss not to also give props to Zappos.com. I tell everyone about them. Shopping for size 14 shoes went from a major inconvenience (4+ store visits and/or 2-week special ordering) to amazing and overnight.
Anand Dhingra
on 12 Jun 08L.L. Bean. A human answers the phone after the first ring, they give you a lifetime guarantee on everything they sell, and their customer service is always able to locate products which they no longer stock in their regular catalog.
steve
on 13 Jun 08Costco
I have returned 3 Laptops to them. Each time I used the computer for 70+ days before returning.
Each time they never questioned my reasons. I will buy all of our business equipment there. Now they just need to carry more Macs.
Martin
on 13 Jun 08You, Sarah, you f*&$ing rock! 5 minutes tops from putting out a question or raising an issue to get a response. Customer service showtime right at 37Signals.
I’ve also been fantastically assisted at hostgator.com, amazon.com and Kramer’s Bookstore in Washington DC.
Rock on!
Martin
Matt Henderson
on 13 Jun 08Garmin service rocks. I have a two year old Forerunner 305 which recently locked up on me. I live in Spain, and expected difficulties getting it repaired. I called Garmin UK. The man who answered the telephone helped me determine, in less than a minute, that the device’s power button was stuck.
He asked me to send it in for repair. When I asked whether we should, at the same time, say, also replace the battery (since it’s old), he replied, “Oh don’t worry about that. We don’t actually repair the devices; we simply replace them.”
I mailed it off from Marbella, Spain this Monday, and today (Friday) the new one arrived by courier.
Amy
on 13 Jun 08Bose, hands down, has some of the best customer service of any consumer goods companies. Way better than Apple, even.
I bought a $300 pair of headphones – the Quiet Comfort IIIs. I don’t keep them in their case and I managed to break the first one. I went to their store in the mall and they had replaced it inside of 5 minutes.
Another time, my boyfriend lost his cable to the same kind of headphones. We went to the store hoping to buy another one. The guy there said they didn’t keep those spare parts in stock,... but he might check in the back just in case. He did find one—from a floor model that was on display with a “special” iPhone cable rather than the normal one. He raided its box and came up with the original cable; Thomas asked how much and the guy just held up his hand. Gratis, of course.
Say what you will about their speaker systems (I don’t like their fidelity). But their headphones and customer service are unparalleled.
CJ Curtis
on 13 Jun 08I actually have two…
My local Chase Bank and Home Depot.
BUT, that doesn’t really speak to the companies in general. I can go to the Home Depot 20 minutes away and be completely ignored.
It’s all relative, I guess.
I’ve found that if I want good customer service from a large retailer (especially tech help), call back as many times as it takes to get someone who gives a sh**. Usually works for me.
julie
on 13 Jun 08Gardener’s Supply Company (gardeners.com) – their customer service is fantastic. It seems their customer service feedback is well-incorporated into their ecommerce flow, because their order confirmation and order delivery emails have thorough and clear information on when you can expect things, which is a rare and wonderful thing.
Also, Zappos as mentioned.
And I have to say, when I called AT&T about my confusing wireless iphone family plan bill, the rep was patient and thorough and resolved everything satisfactorily. Much better than I had expected.
Anna
on 13 Jun 08This is not about a commercial company but I am going to say the school that I teach at, for something the leadership did before I was there. A student attended the school for two months almost three years ago. He died shortly after, the culmination of a long illness. The school recognized that although he had only been there a very short time that he felt intensely connected to the school. For him that was his school and so they have made a home for his family and his memory in several ways. The family was invited to what would have been his graduation. The students continue to represent him by participating in relay for life, a memorial garden was erected and the family has been welcomed to the school many times. To me that shows an unwillingness to avoid what is difficult and to recognize that we had a larger role in one person’s life than perhaps they were able to have in ours. Customer service? Perhaps you would not classify it as such but I think customer service is often about being creatively sympathetic in ways that don’t fit the routine.
Darrel
on 13 Jun 08Lately? Umm…well…hrm.
Qwest? No. Awful as usual. MS? Nope. Useless as usual. Honda? Great product. Really liek the car. But the weird semi-stalker semi-douchebag follow-up whining calls made me kind of disgusted. So, not there. Umm…
Still thinking.
Er…well…umm…yea, I’m stumped.
Of course, I suppose the ‘best’ support is the products and services I’ve purchased that simply didn’t NEED support. It is hard to notice those, I suppose.
Reading the others…Apple…they’ve done good for me. One bad experience, but for the most part, they seem to empower their genius bar folks to do a LOT that most companies wouldn’t dream of allowing.
Home Depot/Menards/Other big boxes. For the most part, these places are definitely ‘you get what you pay for’ in terms of product quality and service. But, they do accept pretty much any return, which is nice when you’re remodeling a basement and buying metric tons of stuff that you may or may not be using.
Debbie
on 13 Jun 08Amazon. I am consistently surprised and pleased that almost everything I order from them arrives before it was supposed to, often by a couple of days. I have never once received the wrong item. Their checkout process is brainless, they are fast to use and they have everything under the sun. Plus their prices are outstanding.
I would probably applaud their customer support, except that I’ve never had to use it.
Timothy Uruski
on 14 Jun 08A lot of shops and cafés have a minimum purchase amount before they’ll let you pay with your debit card, which usually means you have to buy more than you want if you don’t have cash. I always appreciate it when the person attending the till lets the limit slide, especially when you’re only $0.25 away from the minimum amount. If it’s a café, I’ll usually drop an extra dollar as a tip simply for not making a big deal out of a quarter.
Yellow Guy
on 15 Jun 08Newegg – Forever :) Whenever I have had any problem, they have fixed it beyond my satisfaction. A true customer service based company
Charlie Triplett
on 16 Jun 08My wife had a great customer experience with BD Basal Thermometers. She actually purchased the wrong thermometer at a Walgreens while we were in Florida, and couldn’t find the right thermometer here in Missouri. She called BD, and they sent her a postage paid package for the return and a coupon for a new thermometer to use anywhere she likes.
That was a lot of trouble for them over a $10 thermometer.
Yet, at the same time, CenturyTel can’t get my DSL to work consistently, even for hundreds of dollars a year.
What is it that makes the difference?
How can one company bend over backwards to keep you buying a product for $10, which you’ll buy maybe 3 of in a lifetime (if your break or lose it), while another company hits you for $40-$60 a month, and can’t even figure out if their service is truly available in your area?
Paul
on 16 Jun 08Larson Doors. Petro Oil. Overstock ain’t bad.
Circuit City IS THE WORST.
Tony Dillon
on 16 Jun 08Devotec are excellent. Sent me a faulty device, and responded to my email almost immediately. Sent me another, and were very polite and apologetic. Got the feeling they really cared about making me (a first time customer) happy.
A great device too.
http://devotecindustries.co.uk/
Aaron Kulbe
on 17 Jun 08Incase.
I got a Macbook late in ‘07 and found that my Incase neoprene sleeve was staining the sides of my Macbook black.
I called, and they said that fill out a claim form on their website and to get an estimate from Apple on what it would take to get the bottom case replaced, and they would cover the cost.
They also said they would send me a hard shell case, and a new softshell case of my choosing.
I took it in to the local Apple Store and the Geniuses used something called “Goo-Gone” and the ‘stains’ came right off.
Well, Incase had already shipped the replacements to me. I called them to apologize, and offered to pay for return shipping.
Their shipping manager, a guy named Gonzo (yes, Gonzo) told me to keep the new items, and that they appreciated my letting them know something like that had happened.
They are going to be modifying the new sleeves to have white insides… was what he said.
I just REALLY appreciated the over-the-top service. It’s refreshing.
Don Schenck
on 17 Jun 08Blew the engine in my MR2 Spyder. Turns out I stupidly took it to a quick oil change place and they didn’t “change” so much as “drain”.
Oops. My bad. The cost? $5,500.
But I had an extended warranty, and the service guy at Diehl Toyota in York determined that the engine blew “at no fault of the customer”. I paid my $50 deductible on my extended warranty and drove away a customer for life.
This discussion is closed.