Another vote for Virgin Mobile.
I think Aldi fails the test with its “no express checkout” policy.
Toyota
Levi
Amazon
Shoes for Crews
Thats not what happened to me, they told me to call the ungrateful bitch hotline.
Trader Joe’s.
Costco Love their groceries, prices on things besides groceries, return policy, gas stations, corporate policies.
Virgin Airlines I hate flying but I love flying Virgin.
I have to add a shout out to Discount Tire too - they are seriously good, and have helped us out a few times. Long stories no one wants to hear, but I wouldn’t give my business to anyone else.
Strongly second USAA. They have excellent customer service and are always the cheapest option for good insurance. They don’t have the most banking options, especially for credit cards, but they make up for it with reliability and standing behind their clients.
Oh, and I can’t believe anyone’s saying Verizon. Hell, they managed to piss me off yesterday just by trying - very, very badly - to sell me a FIOS package.
Clicked on their ad I saw for the package on someone else’s page, and then clicked on the ‘check availability’ button, which led to another button, which basically forced you to log in or register as a My Verizon member before you could find out if there was FIOS service at your address. And since my ‘My Verizon’ membership isn’t mine but theirs, and I never use it and would be happier if it just went away, that gets into the whole not-finding-password-and-getting-it-reset business, which involves a whole 'nother set of hoops.
So that’s how Verizon managed to piss me off in a situation where I started off not having to deal with them in the first place. Assholes.
And that’s pretty much how most of my experiences with Verizon have gone. They know your only other choice is Comcast, so you’re screwed either way.
DishNetwork - never a reception problem. When the DVR died, and I called customer service, call got answered immediately. Every time I’ve ever called them I’ve gotten knowledgeable friendly people who seem to understand the technology and even better treat you with respect. When I tell them what I’ve tried they listen and are not stuck reciting advice from a screen.
AT&T - we have them for wired phone service and DSL. When I wanted to do something very complicated - remove one line, move the DSL to the other, and move email while keeping our old email address, not only did they do it, and hand me off to the next person for the next job without a slip, but one of them said that since we were such old customers we deserved a $100 gift card.
I’ll agree with Costco as an example.
I would have said Southwest, but they have gotten so expensive we don’t fly them any more.
I loathe photographer’s brand wars. Many really good cameras and lenses out there. I have stuck with a few brands myself, tho, mostly because of certain intangibles, like their feel.
I have never had a bad experience with:
Nikon (film and digital)
Canon (film and digital)
Leica (except for current prices) ((film only))
Olympus (film and digital)
Pentax (film only)
Minolta (haven’t owned any Sony cameras, except for the sensors in some of my other cameras) ((film only))
Mamiya (film only)
Hasselblad (same price complaint for this as Leica) ((film only))
Zeiss (lenses for my old film Hassy and also a couple of old roll film folders)
I’ll add in Meade and Celestron scopes and binocs for my amateur astronomy fun.
Not that the other brands are bad. I just find myself preferring these mentioned. I can’t narrow down much either, because I tend to buy based on my current needs and wants and have been in this field for several decades.
Zappos
Honda
Videotron (cable, phone, and internet provider)
Enterprise Car Rentals
Vanguard mutual funds
Panera
My local bank. Rock solid service. No fees, no minimum balances. Has refunded me most of the time I over-drafted or made some snafu. Really, it only let me down once, when PayPal once charged my brother’s debit card (instead of my credit card which I explicitly entered), and over-drafted his account. Neither PayPal, nor the bank would refund the over-draft. I still haven’t forgiven PayPal, but my bank has done so much for me that I begrudgingly moved on.
Also, my Bank of America credit cards have never let me down (different from my local bank). I cancelled my checking account when BOA decided/threatened to charge a debit card fee, but I get a really good rate on my credit cards, I was able to reverse the charges on a company that stiffed me, and they always alert me of suspicious activity. Plus no fees, and good rewards. I have never been disappointed by the credit card side of BOA.
Mountainsmith - two travel trunk duffel bags and a sleeping bag. The duffels are amazingly well built, one is 20 years old and other than being a little dirty it’s as good as the day I bought it.
Mozilla, makers of Firefox.
USAA = Awesome.
I’ve had some good experiences with Honda, too.
Echoing good sentiments about Amazon, Pelican, NewEgg, MagLite, Zappos, and Travelocity. Ditto Chevy trucks - the current one (Suburban) has 275k miles on it, and still keeps going and going and going.
Speaking of which: Kitchenaid. My mixer is “only” a dozen or so years old - I use it an average of 3-4 times per week, making bread dough and cake batter and whatever, and it soldiers on. Ma’s KA mixer is about 40 years old, and still perfect. Grandmother used hers daily in her restaurant, then brought it home for retirement, where it continued to turn out fabulous cakes and pies. As far as I can tell, it’s about 55 years old. Works fine. I also have a KA blender, food processor, and microwave/conventional/convection oven combo (bought used at a yard sale,) and it’s wonderful.
Also in the kitchen: Luzianne tea, White Lily flour for quick breads, King Arthur for yeast breads, Mahatma/WaterMaid rice, Diet Coke, Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee, and Yuengling beer.
Miscellaneous: Degree antiperspirant, L’Oreal foundation (apparently the only drugstore brand that makes a non-irritating formula in the shade “Damn-Near Albino,”) OtterBox phone cases, and 4Health dog food from Tractor Supply.
Nissan. Great value and good a really good car. They have a real commitment to safety and did some interesting engineering that we liked. My husband and kids were in a very bad crash (hit head on by someone having a seizure) and they all walked away. Bought a new Altima to replace the one that was totaled.
Costco: Only warehouse store I’ll shop at. High quality products, great service and ethical corporation.
Discount Tire (again) - Unless something there changes, I see no need to ever deal with a different tire store
Honda - both cars and motorcycles
Apple - 97.5% on board, but iTunes and how it syncs with my phone is a little bit frustrating.
Sennheiser - various headphones over the years - always excellent quality
Keurig - Actually I did have a problem with one of their home brewing machines, but the way they resolved it made me a fan. Brewer was over one year old and out of warranty when it began to stop brewing after less than a cup. Called tech support, he walked me through a few attempted fixes in about 10 minutes. Nothing worked. So, he took my address down and shipped me a brand new machine, no questions asked. The new brewer was a nnewer model with nicer features, and it didn’t cost me a dime. I didn’t even have to send the old one back to them.
And, as someone that travels a lot on business, I’ll throw these two in:
Victorinox - always good quality luggage, and when I’ve needed a repair, very good customer service.
Timbuk2 - well designed, well constructed, never had an issue.
Dell Latitude (business-grade) laptops
Publix Supermarkets
Ryobi Power Tools
Honda and Mazda vehicles
Eddie Bauer products- Lifetime Warranty
Harry & David gifts