Good/ Bad Customer Service Stories - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Randerolf · 09-03-2006, 08:06 PM

The GoodRecently I had some trouble with my TiVo.
(from a letter that I wrote them)

Quote:

I am disappointed in TiVo. I purchased a refurbished unit in July of 2006 and a Lifetime Service package for $299. Almost exactly a year later, my unit does not work. Last Saturday morning, the unit became slow and then continued to reboot. I believe the hard drive has failed.

I spoke to a representative this afternoon (Case # XXXX) and she said that my warranty ended 12 days ago. I am disappointed in a product that only lasts days beyond its warranty. I’ve never had a piece of electronics die, so quickly.

Since a representative made a mistake when I bought my Tivo, I know that a one year agreement cost $155 at the time of my purchase. I got that cleared up, but I have ended up paying $144 for service which I cannot even use.

I’ve heard such great thing about Tivo, so I gave the company a chance. I loved it. I told all my friend s how great it was. I got my girlfriend to purchase one – ironically, mine died as soon as she received hers in the mail.

Paying another $149 for a replacement is unacceptable. As a college student paying my way though school, I cannot afford to buy a new TiVo every year.

I request that TiVo honor it’s warranty and/ or contact me so that we can come to some form a agreement.

I am disappointed in a company that I loved, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Mister Randerolf

Upon getting my letter, a nice guy from Tivo called and said that they wanted to work with me. I was expecting, "Sorry, your princess is in another castle. Corporate policy is ...." They worked with me and replaced my unit for $50. It wasn't what I expected from a corporation. I am very pleased. One the favorite things about my job is that I can go into work and make people literally go "wow."

The Bad Here's a video of a sleeping Comcast Technician after being on-hold for an hour.
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CvVp7b5gzqU"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CvVp7b5gzqU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

What happened the last time that you had great or awful customer service?

Dilbert1234567 · 09-03-2006, 09:00 PM

i orderd a small usb hub from newegg.com, it came DOA, so i called them up for the return policy, they said it was pointless to send back a $12 item, shipping alone made it not worth it, so they just game me $20 on my debit card, and said to buy a new one, or something else.

maleficent · 09-04-2006, 04:24 AM

Two recent ones... My wallet was recently stolen

I'll let you figure out which was good and which was bad

Credit card company
Hi i'd like to report my wallet as stolen please. But..
(thickly accented voice)Oh you lost your wallet
No, it was stolen... but...
OK you're wallet was stolen
(tap tap tap tap) there's no activity on it- you sure it wasn't lost?
No, my wallet was stolen about an hour ago, and if you would let me continue, I need to cancel the card but the problem is I am travelling this week so am I going to have a problem checking out of my hotel
Today is wednesday, even uif we rushed you a card you wouldn't have it til friday evening.. you won't have the card to check out of the hotel with
Fine but that wasn't my question.. and again I repeat my quandry (now I'm pretty sure I won't have a problem but I just want confirmation)
Again she repeats the above about when i will or won't get the new card.
I sigh and ask for a supervisor
Hold for many many minutes and get another thickly accented person named Steven. I repeated my quandry to Steven, and again he assumes I lost my wallet as there is no activity... and again I state that my wallet has been stolen and pretty much what time frame it happened... and agan I ask my question...
steven procedes to tell me that my new card won't arrive by friday. Again - I try my question again using different words.. and still get the response about frirday... Compeltely exasperated I ask for yet one more supervisor... to myself I'm thinking an english speaking one... 10 minutes later... I speak to Herb.
I ask herb my question again... and he gets it... cancels my card tells me if there/s a problem checking out to call the company and have a nice day... THEN he spends the next 7 minutes upselling me... no thank you...

So I wasted all that time... next I call my bank
I get right thru after navigating the press 1 for whatever 4 for whatever phone system... and explain my problem that my card has been stolen... Lost or stolen she asks... stolen from arestaurant about an hour or so ago..a nd I tell her what the last charge on it I made was... Oh dear she says, there've been several hundred dollars worth of charges made in the past half hour (while I was fighting wth credit card company) AND they're trying again... and she pressed the kill button to prevent the charge from going thru...

Got my card cancelled.. and within minutes I h ad the info on what to do next.

lurkette · 09-04-2006, 04:54 AM

Since I used to travel a LOT for work, I got more exposure than I ever could have wished for to airline customer service. And let me tell you, attitude goes a hell of a long way.

Just a few months ago, I was traveling out of Madison (which is a piddly little airport about 2 hours drive from Chicago) when some thunderstorms had disrupted travel pretty much system-wide. I had to yell for someone to come to the desk when I checked in, he was flirting and swearing with his co-worker (both were college age, she was a dopey little thing). Fine, I think, aren't they cute and immature? Well, when it came time to board they were at the gate, and turns out our flight's delayed and people with flights before 9 are likely to miss their connection. Even though it wasn't their fault, they had this "whatever" attitude about it that pissed everyone off. No apologies, no efforts to find alternate flights, just "we'll put you up at a hotel and your next available flight is at 10 tomorrow morning." They giggled and mocked irate customers after they left the kiosk, they rolled their eyes, they did absolutely nothing to help. I ended up going to another airline's desk and asking THEM if they could get me out. Eventually I decided I'd rather get stuck in Cincinatti if I missed my connection than deal with these yahoos for another day. Turns out my connection was delayed anyhow and I made it home that night, no thanks to Beavis and Butthead.

Now, skip back a few years to flying from San Fran through DFW (super busy) during the same situation: system-wide disruption from weather near a major hub. Everything's backed up, everyone's pissed and anxious, and our gate agent is an angel. She's joking with the passengers, she's booking people on other airlines or routing them through other airports if she needs to, she's reassuring people that they're likely to make their connections because they're probably delayed, too, she's defusing angry, tense people. She's just a joy to work with. The flight crew was just as great. Not Southwest great, but still reassuring and "yeah this sucks, but we're all in this together, don't worry we'll take care of you." It was so nice to be surrounded by that kind of human kindness, only the diehard bitchers were really still unhappy, and everyone on the plane kind of rolled our eyes together at them.

The right attitude from someone in charge can make or break your day.

The_Jazz · 09-04-2006, 08:26 AM

I'm another frequent traveler, so I've got my share of stories, but I think this is the best one.

Traveling from Charleston, WV back to Chicago. It's not a big airport and there's weather and in Chicago. The flight is delayed but they tell us that there's a very firm rescheduled time. Fine. I can deal with that. The time comes and goes, and there's no gate agent anywhere to be seen. Ok, we're probably on a ground hold in Chicago, but it would be nice to know that for sure, but whatever. Another hour goes by (we're now 3 hours past the scheduled takeoff time) and no gate agent has appeared nor has an announcement been made. There's only one gate for this airline in the terminal, so I can't find anyone else to ask unless I go through security (which has now shut down for the night). I start checking my watch and getting impatient. After another 1/2 hour I call the airline's high-level frequent flyer number (sometimes it's nice to keep all your trips with one airline) to find out what's going on. The woman who answers the phone apologizes immediately and puts me on hold to find out what's going on. She's back within about 3 minutes and is almost incredulous. Apparently, she called the front desk and they hung up on her. She starts laughing and gets her supervisor to start tracking people down and figures out that the pilots have been ready to go for 45 minutes and have been radioing the tower to get a gate agent out to load the plane. She ends up having to get security to reopen and then makes an announcement that she's the only one there and that she doesn't appreciate people calling the national office to get her in trouble. The flight attendant was standing by the door and said something I'll never forget. "If you actually did you job, no one would be mad and you could have gone home. But you apparently sat on your butt up front and assumed that everything was ok, so now everyone knows that you're going to get fired soon." That shut her up very quickly, and I got a letter from the airline about a week later apologizing for the delay. It was a form letter, but it was the first one of those I'd ever gotten.

So a mixed bag - one employee that couldn't be bothered to do her job and about a half dozen that were completely embarrassed by her lack of ability to perform the most basic of tasks assigned to her.

ngdawg · 09-04-2006, 08:42 AM

The bad:
Eight of us go to dinner around Christmas time-last year someone suggested the Longhorn Steakhouse in their town.
Spouse and I arrive later than the others. We're seated with them in a center-of-the-aisle table, next to the server's station(the servers had to squeeze behind us to get to their port)
Waiter takes our drink order-spouse a draught, me, a frozen daiquari. He gets a bottle of beer, I get my drink in a beer mug.
Waiter takes our food orders. Several minutes later, salads come out. Four of them. Not 5 minutes later, the meals come out. Uh, where's the rest of the salads? They take back the food, bring out the other 4 salads.
Dennis calls a server over-seems bread was supposed to be put out. He brings two baskets and sets them down. In front of Dennis.
Food comes out again. Don's order is wrong. Mine is wrong.
Dennis asks for the manager. He comes out, apologizes. That's it. No 'dessert comp', no reducing the bill. We leave almost no tip on the over $200 bill and walk out.
That night, I found the 'contact us' online and go over our rotten experience. The following Monday I get a call from a Dennis at corporate, apologizing profusely for what happened to us and made me an offer: He would send me $150 in corporate gift cards and after we use them, please report our experience once again.
The Good:
The eight of us found another Longhorn and went. Our waiter introduced himself, took our drink orders and promptly came back with 8 correct drinks (without writing any down).
Bread came immediately. Our salad orders, all correct, promptly followed. Waiter asks us if there's anything we need.
Orders come out. Correctly done and wonderfully cooked to perfection. Again, waiter asked if there's anything we needed. We got more bread.
When it came time to pay the bill, I handed Dennis the $150 in cards. When the waiter went to process it all, I noticed him calling over someone. The man and the waiter came to us and asked how did we get those corporate cards-I explained what had happened(After our goofy friend Dennis looks him straight in the eye and says 'We're corporate') . He too apologized (although it wasn't his store) and handed each of us a business card, saying if we would like to come back again, call him directly and he'd hook us up.
Tip left-20%.

Dilbert1234567 · 09-04-2006, 08:45 AM

I’ve got a credit card one from a few years back. my friend was having computer trouble and she asked me to help, long story short, she had an active Trojan and she had just used her credit card online to buy MacAfee AV. I gave the card company a call and after a few minutes, got a real person, I told them to put a hold on the card as the numbers had possibly been stolen about a half hour back, she came back and said, we saw a few suspicious charges, declined them, put a hold on the card, and tried to get in touch with us via our land line. As I was on the phone, she said oh here's another charge trying to go through, $650 for a surf board, we're going to cancel the card and send you a new one.

Sage · 09-04-2006, 08:53 AM

Hrm...

The last time I got really great customer service was when I had gone to Carrabas and gotten TERRIBLE service and wrote the company. They sent me a certificate for a free $50 dinner, and when Martel and I went the manager was all over us trying to make us happy. It was really great. He said to ask for him personally whenever we come back.

I've found that sucky customer service can almost always be rectified by writing the company. The only two times that writing the company didn't work was with Wal-Mart (not that I was really expecting it to) and Ham's Resturants (and what do you expect when the customer service rep is named Lindsay and is from Greensboro?)

I've gotten a rebate check for $18 for a crappy mop I bought from Rubbermaid, the nice free dinner at Carrabas, a nice free dinner complete with visit from the regional supervisior of O'Charleys (he came to my HOUSE), free dinners at TGIFriday's because of bad service while there... I've found that by politely telling a company that I was dissatisfied with its service I am quickly made into a happy customer. It's nice. I know that if I had been on some of those airline flights y'all were talking about, I'da written a letter that would have made the CEO's head spin!

I have to say the best customer service tho was the Rubbermaid mop. I needed a new mop, so when I was at the store I opted for the "New! Amazing! Wonder!" mop which was $18. When I got home, I opened up the mop head, had to soak it in water for 30min (because it was made out of some new amazing water soaking material), and went to mopping. Not only did the mop SUCK at actually mopping the floor, the water rollers were too weak for the material the mop head was made out of AND it turned all the suds blue (becase the mop head was blue). I was pretty pissed at having to mop my floor twice because the mop didn't work. I wrote Rubbermaid a funny but "I'm very dissappointed in you" letter, and a week later got a letter from the head of customer service saying they were very sorry that I didn't like the mop, please won't I consider giving Rubbermaid another chance, here's a check for $18 to cover the cost of the crappy mop. I was VERY pleased with their response, as it was over and above what I was expecting.

SirLance · 09-04-2006, 10:08 AM

After about a 15 hour day, I went out to the car -- dead battery. Got a jump from a co-worker and drove over to Checker. The 19 year old kid behind the counter asked me what I needed, I told him what had happened. He found the correct battery, sat me down in the office with a glass of ice water, and changed the battery in my car.

You can bet I wrote his DM and sang his praises. That kid didn't have to do that, but it was a wonderful kindess.

mandy · 09-05-2006, 01:18 AM

I'm a waitress at a restaurant called "the Dros" and i pride myself on giving the best customer service to all customers who walk into the restaurant on my shift even if i don't end up serving them...so much so infact that i have a few regulars who always ask to be served by me and who are disappointed when i don't work...

so, the last time i worked, i got a table of 21 people(4 families). they came from inland and it was their first time in port elizabeth. they knew absolutely nothing about the place and had just come for a quick lunch after they were at the oceanarium. they had not organised any accomodation whatsoever. they had no idea where anything was or where they were to stay for the week that they were here.

so me, being the helpfull waitress that i am, phoned all the hotels and holiday stay places in the area, got them to fax through their price lists so i could give them a choice, got them a local map of the area and in addition to the excellent service and the map,verbally gave them directions to the place they finally decided to stay at.

my manager called me the next day to say they came back and asked for me but i was off that day. they said i was the most helpfull and friendliest waitron they have ever been served by and would definately be coming back to the restaurant.

let me not forget to mention the R300 tip i got off an R800 bill...i was quite chuffed with myself

clavus · 09-05-2006, 11:28 AM

'twas a Sunday and hotter than Satan's butt-crack when our AC died. The ancient electrical box on my house is full of circuit breakers that are not available at basic hardware stores.

I called the electrical supply stores, all of which were closed on Sundays. By shear accident, I connected to the cell phone of one store owner. After a brief conversation, he drove to his shop, opened up his store just for me, and sold me the breaker.

How great!

snowy · 09-05-2006, 12:16 PM

I have a letter to write--at the TFP meet-up in Seattle a couple of weeks ago we ended up with a $70.00 erroneous charge on our credit card. The credit card company took it off, no questions asked, but you better believe I'm writing Pike Brewing a letter of complaint about it, and about the tepid service we got there.

09-03-2006, 09:00 PM	#2 (permalink)
Dilbert1234567 Devils Cabana Boy Location: Central Coast CA	i orderd a small usb hub from newegg.com, it came DOA, so i called them up for the return policy, they said it was pointless to send back a $12 item, shipping alone made it not worth it, so they just game me $20 on my debit card, and said to buy a new one, or something else. __________________ Donate Blood! "Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

09-04-2006, 04:24 AM	#3 (permalink)
maleficent Junkie Moderator Emeritus Location: Chicago	Two recent ones... My wallet was recently stolen I'll let you figure out which was good and which was bad Credit card company Hi i'd like to report my wallet as stolen please. But.. (thickly accented voice)Oh you lost your wallet No, it was stolen... but... OK you're wallet was stolen (tap tap tap tap) there's no activity on it- you sure it wasn't lost? No, my wallet was stolen about an hour ago, and if you would let me continue, I need to cancel the card but the problem is I am travelling this week so am I going to have a problem checking out of my hotel Today is wednesday, even uif we rushed you a card you wouldn't have it til friday evening.. you won't have the card to check out of the hotel with Fine but that wasn't my question.. and again I repeat my quandry (now I'm pretty sure I won't have a problem but I just want confirmation) Again she repeats the above about when i will or won't get the new card. I sigh and ask for a supervisor Hold for many many minutes and get another thickly accented person named Steven. I repeated my quandry to Steven, and again he assumes I lost my wallet as there is no activity... and again I state that my wallet has been stolen and pretty much what time frame it happened... and agan I ask my question... steven procedes to tell me that my new card won't arrive by friday. Again - I try my question again using different words.. and still get the response about frirday... Compeltely exasperated I ask for yet one more supervisor... to myself I'm thinking an english speaking one... 10 minutes later... I speak to Herb. I ask herb my question again... and he gets it... cancels my card tells me if there/s a problem checking out to call the company and have a nice day... THEN he spends the next 7 minutes upselling me... no thank you... So I wasted all that time... next I call my bank I get right thru after navigating the press 1 for whatever 4 for whatever phone system... and explain my problem that my card has been stolen... Lost or stolen she asks... stolen from arestaurant about an hour or so ago..a nd I tell her what the last charge on it I made was... Oh dear she says, there've been several hundred dollars worth of charges made in the past half hour (while I was fighting wth credit card company) AND they're trying again... and she pressed the kill button to prevent the charge from going thru... Got my card cancelled.. and within minutes I h ad the info on what to do next. __________________ Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.

09-04-2006, 04:54 AM	#4 (permalink)
lurkette My future is coming on Moderator Emeritus Location: east of the sun and west of the moon	Since I used to travel a LOT for work, I got more exposure than I ever could have wished for to airline customer service. And let me tell you, attitude goes a hell of a long way. Just a few months ago, I was traveling out of Madison (which is a piddly little airport about 2 hours drive from Chicago) when some thunderstorms had disrupted travel pretty much system-wide. I had to yell for someone to come to the desk when I checked in, he was flirting and swearing with his co-worker (both were college age, she was a dopey little thing). Fine, I think, aren't they cute and immature? Well, when it came time to board they were at the gate, and turns out our flight's delayed and people with flights before 9 are likely to miss their connection. Even though it wasn't their fault, they had this "whatever" attitude about it that pissed everyone off. No apologies, no efforts to find alternate flights, just "we'll put you up at a hotel and your next available flight is at 10 tomorrow morning." They giggled and mocked irate customers after they left the kiosk, they rolled their eyes, they did absolutely nothing to help. I ended up going to another airline's desk and asking THEM if they could get me out. Eventually I decided I'd rather get stuck in Cincinatti if I missed my connection than deal with these yahoos for another day. Turns out my connection was delayed anyhow and I made it home that night, no thanks to Beavis and Butthead. Now, skip back a few years to flying from San Fran through DFW (super busy) during the same situation: system-wide disruption from weather near a major hub. Everything's backed up, everyone's pissed and anxious, and our gate agent is an angel. She's joking with the passengers, she's booking people on other airlines or routing them through other airports if she needs to, she's reassuring people that they're likely to make their connections because they're probably delayed, too, she's defusing angry, tense people. She's just a joy to work with. The flight crew was just as great. Not Southwest great, but still reassuring and "yeah this sucks, but we're all in this together, don't worry we'll take care of you." It was so nice to be surrounded by that kind of human kindness, only the diehard bitchers were really still unhappy, and everyone on the plane kind of rolled our eyes together at them. The right attitude from someone in charge can make or break your day. __________________ "If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

09-04-2006, 08:26 AM	#5 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	I'm another frequent traveler, so I've got my share of stories, but I think this is the best one. Traveling from Charleston, WV back to Chicago. It's not a big airport and there's weather and in Chicago. The flight is delayed but they tell us that there's a very firm rescheduled time. Fine. I can deal with that. The time comes and goes, and there's no gate agent anywhere to be seen. Ok, we're probably on a ground hold in Chicago, but it would be nice to know that for sure, but whatever. Another hour goes by (we're now 3 hours past the scheduled takeoff time) and no gate agent has appeared nor has an announcement been made. There's only one gate for this airline in the terminal, so I can't find anyone else to ask unless I go through security (which has now shut down for the night). I start checking my watch and getting impatient. After another 1/2 hour I call the airline's high-level frequent flyer number (sometimes it's nice to keep all your trips with one airline) to find out what's going on. The woman who answers the phone apologizes immediately and puts me on hold to find out what's going on. She's back within about 3 minutes and is almost incredulous. Apparently, she called the front desk and they hung up on her. She starts laughing and gets her supervisor to start tracking people down and figures out that the pilots have been ready to go for 45 minutes and have been radioing the tower to get a gate agent out to load the plane. She ends up having to get security to reopen and then makes an announcement that she's the only one there and that she doesn't appreciate people calling the national office to get her in trouble. The flight attendant was standing by the door and said something I'll never forget. "If you actually did you job, no one would be mad and you could have gone home. But you apparently sat on your butt up front and assumed that everything was ok, so now everyone knows that you're going to get fired soon." That shut her up very quickly, and I got a letter from the airline about a week later apologizing for the delay. It was a form letter, but it was the first one of those I'd ever gotten. So a mixed bag - one employee that couldn't be bothered to do her job and about a half dozen that were completely embarrassed by her lack of ability to perform the most basic of tasks assigned to her. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

09-04-2006, 08:42 AM	#6 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	The bad: Eight of us go to dinner around Christmas time-last year someone suggested the Longhorn Steakhouse in their town. Spouse and I arrive later than the others. We're seated with them in a center-of-the-aisle table, next to the server's station(the servers had to squeeze behind us to get to their port) Waiter takes our drink order-spouse a draught, me, a frozen daiquari. He gets a bottle of beer, I get my drink in a beer mug. Waiter takes our food orders. Several minutes later, salads come out. Four of them. Not 5 minutes later, the meals come out. Uh, where's the rest of the salads? They take back the food, bring out the other 4 salads. Dennis calls a server over-seems bread was supposed to be put out. He brings two baskets and sets them down. In front of Dennis. Food comes out again. Don's order is wrong. Mine is wrong. Dennis asks for the manager. He comes out, apologizes. That's it. No 'dessert comp', no reducing the bill. We leave almost no tip on the over $200 bill and walk out. That night, I found the 'contact us' online and go over our rotten experience. The following Monday I get a call from a Dennis at corporate, apologizing profusely for what happened to us and made me an offer: He would send me $150 in corporate gift cards and after we use them, please report our experience once again. The Good: The eight of us found another Longhorn and went. Our waiter introduced himself, took our drink orders and promptly came back with 8 correct drinks (without writing any down). Bread came immediately. Our salad orders, all correct, promptly followed. Waiter asks us if there's anything we need. Orders come out. Correctly done and wonderfully cooked to perfection. Again, waiter asked if there's anything we needed. We got more bread. When it came time to pay the bill, I handed Dennis the $150 in cards. When the waiter went to process it all, I noticed him calling over someone. The man and the waiter came to us and asked how did we get those corporate cards-I explained what had happened(After our goofy friend Dennis looks him straight in the eye and says 'We're corporate') . He too apologized (although it wasn't his store) and handed each of us a business card, saying if we would like to come back again, call him directly and he'd hook us up. Tip left-20%. __________________ Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

09-04-2006, 08:45 AM	#7 (permalink)
Dilbert1234567 Devils Cabana Boy Location: Central Coast CA	I’ve got a credit card one from a few years back. my friend was having computer trouble and she asked me to help, long story short, she had an active Trojan and she had just used her credit card online to buy MacAfee AV. I gave the card company a call and after a few minutes, got a real person, I told them to put a hold on the card as the numbers had possibly been stolen about a half hour back, she came back and said, we saw a few suspicious charges, declined them, put a hold on the card, and tried to get in touch with us via our land line. As I was on the phone, she said oh here's another charge trying to go through, $650 for a surf board, we're going to cancel the card and send you a new one. __________________ Donate Blood! "Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

09-04-2006, 08:53 AM	#8 (permalink)
Sage hoarding all the big girl panties since 2005 Location: North side	Hrm... The last time I got really great customer service was when I had gone to Carrabas and gotten TERRIBLE service and wrote the company. They sent me a certificate for a free $50 dinner, and when Martel and I went the manager was all over us trying to make us happy. It was really great. He said to ask for him personally whenever we come back. I've found that sucky customer service can almost always be rectified by writing the company. The only two times that writing the company didn't work was with Wal-Mart (not that I was really expecting it to) and Ham's Resturants (and what do you expect when the customer service rep is named Lindsay and is from Greensboro?) I've gotten a rebate check for $18 for a crappy mop I bought from Rubbermaid, the nice free dinner at Carrabas, a nice free dinner complete with visit from the regional supervisior of O'Charleys (he came to my HOUSE), free dinners at TGIFriday's because of bad service while there... I've found that by politely telling a company that I was dissatisfied with its service I am quickly made into a happy customer. It's nice. I know that if I had been on some of those airline flights y'all were talking about, I'da written a letter that would have made the CEO's head spin! I have to say the best customer service tho was the Rubbermaid mop. I needed a new mop, so when I was at the store I opted for the "New! Amazing! Wonder!" mop which was $18. When I got home, I opened up the mop head, had to soak it in water for 30min (because it was made out of some new amazing water soaking material), and went to mopping. Not only did the mop SUCK at actually mopping the floor, the water rollers were too weak for the material the mop head was made out of AND it turned all the suds blue (becase the mop head was blue). I was pretty pissed at having to mop my floor twice because the mop didn't work. I wrote Rubbermaid a funny but "I'm very dissappointed in you" letter, and a week later got a letter from the head of customer service saying they were very sorry that I didn't like the mop, please won't I consider giving Rubbermaid another chance, here's a check for $18 to cover the cost of the crappy mop. I was VERY pleased with their response, as it was over and above what I was expecting. __________________ Sage knows our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's She answers hard acrostics, has a pretty taste for paradox She quotes in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus In conics she can floor peculiarities parabolous -C'hi

09-04-2006, 10:08 AM	#9 (permalink)
SirLance Junkie Location: In the middle of the desert.	After about a 15 hour day, I went out to the car -- dead battery. Got a jump from a co-worker and drove over to Checker. The 19 year old kid behind the counter asked me what I needed, I told him what had happened. He found the correct battery, sat me down in the office with a glass of ice water, and changed the battery in my car. You can bet I wrote his DM and sang his praises. That kid didn't have to do that, but it was a wonderful kindess. __________________ DEMOCRACY is where your vote counts, FEUDALISM is where your count votes.

09-05-2006, 01:18 AM	#10 (permalink)
mandy Addict Location: Port Elizabeth, South Africa	I'm a waitress at a restaurant called "the Dros" and i pride myself on giving the best customer service to all customers who walk into the restaurant on my shift even if i don't end up serving them...so much so infact that i have a few regulars who always ask to be served by me and who are disappointed when i don't work... so, the last time i worked, i got a table of 21 people(4 families). they came from inland and it was their first time in port elizabeth. they knew absolutely nothing about the place and had just come for a quick lunch after they were at the oceanarium. they had not organised any accomodation whatsoever. they had no idea where anything was or where they were to stay for the week that they were here. so me, being the helpfull waitress that i am, phoned all the hotels and holiday stay places in the area, got them to fax through their price lists so i could give them a choice, got them a local map of the area and in addition to the excellent service and the map,verbally gave them directions to the place they finally decided to stay at. my manager called me the next day to say they came back and asked for me but i was off that day. they said i was the most helpfull and friendliest waitron they have ever been served by and would definately be coming back to the restaurant. let me not forget to mention the R300 tip i got off an R800 bill...i was quite chuffed with myself __________________ The Imagination equips us to see a reality we have yet to create

09-05-2006, 11:28 AM	#11 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	'twas a Sunday and hotter than Satan's butt-crack when our AC died. The ancient electrical box on my house is full of circuit breakers that are not available at basic hardware stores. I called the electrical supply stores, all of which were closed on Sundays. By shear accident, I connected to the cell phone of one store owner. After a brief conversation, he drove to his shop, opened up his store just for me, and sold me the breaker. How great! __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

09-05-2006, 12:16 PM	#12 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	I have a letter to write--at the TFP meet-up in Seattle a couple of weeks ago we ended up with a $70.00 erroneous charge on our credit card. The credit card company took it off, no questions asked, but you better believe I'm writing Pike Brewing a letter of complaint about it, and about the tepid service we got there. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau