Stunned by great service

In My Humble Opinion
21

Several years ago I bought a torchiere and side light floor lamp. The torchiere took a standard bulb but the side light had this weird bulb with what looked like three u-shaped fluorescent tubes.At some point it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to pick up a replacement bulb so I’d have it on hand when the one that came with the lamp burned out.

Except that I couldn’t find one anywhere. Even searching online using the number on the bulb yielded nothing but a few places that had something similar but not identical, or only sold them in wholesale lots. Finally I dug out the assembly sheet that had come with the lamp (yes, I’m a pack rat) and found a phone number for the manufacturer. I called and explained what I wanted, and was told that they’d be happy to send me a replacement bulb. When I asked how much it would cost, they said there’d be no charge, not even for shipping.

But wait, there’s more! When the package arrived, there was not one, but two bulbs inside!

22

I love it! This is the kind of stuff I was thinking about. We often imagine public servants as unpleasant folks, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
After our terrible experience with Immigration in the early 90s, I dreaded our trip to Newark to renew my wife’s green card. They were amazingly polite and treated us with respect.

I had that same problem, with a Saturn no less. My mechanic looked at it and said “Take it to Fuccello’s on Olden. He’ll take care of it much cheaper than I can.”
I was hesitant to go to a “custom exhaust” speed shop place looking for a cheap fix, but that’s exactly what they did. They cut out the bad pipe and welded in a new piece.

I love a mechanic who knows the specialists and sends you to the right one for the job.

Are you me? I watch on in envy as normal people buy shoes at shoe stores. My size 14 clodhoppers are not sold in stores. Recently I found that Converse runs a size large, so I buy size 13 Converse at the store and they fit nicely.

It’s so cool when companies do stuff like this when you ask nicely.

Many years ago I bought a DeWalt wood plunge router at a going-out-of-business sale. It was expensive for me, but the price cut was so great I bought it anyway. It happened to be a display model, and the depth gauge and wrenches were missing.
I figured that was why it was so cheap and figured I would do without. The next day I called DeWalt customer service just to see what the parts would cost and the lady said “Give me your address and we’ll ship the parts to you today.” Free :slight_smile:

I once bought a used Canon 35mm film camera that was missing a screw cap over the remote control connector. A quick call to Canon customer service and the part came to me in a tiny envelope three days later, no charge.

23

With the level of competition in every consumer driven industry today some companies have finally caught on that quality service gets return customers. Even the government realizes that tax payers are “customers”. My most recent experience was with my car dealership. I stopped by to make an appointment and the service writer told me he could do the service that day. He set me up with a loaner car so I could do the errands I had planned. When I returned my car wasn’t quite ready so I was escorted to the lounge, offered a fresh brewed espresso and a choice of snacks. Even though I did not ask, they replaced the wiper blades as part of the service and when they returned my car to me it had been throughly detailed, in and out. BMW/MINI gets it. Sure, some of their cars (O.K., most of their cars) are expensive, but mine was no more expensive than many Fords or Chevys.

24

Was it the store you bought the tires from?

25

About 10 years ago, I bought a desk that had to be assembled, and found that a piece was missing. I called the manufacturer and the lady I talked to sounded like as soon as she finished talking to me, she was going to grab her purse and go right to the factory and straighten things out. My missing part arrived very shortly, but it was her attitude that really impressed me.

That’s when I started writing complimentory emails to corp. I’m not shy about complaining when I think I have a valid grievance, so why shouldn’t I take a few minutes to praise someone who goes above and beyond?

26

Back when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, before cell phones, my wife and I were coming home from a dinner with friends, but in separate cars. She was still talking with her friend when I left, so it wasn’t until an hour had passed at home before I started worrying.
Her car had broken down on the side of the only deserted stretch of road for miles around, if you can imagine such a thing in Jersey. It was a cold February night and she had no way to call for help.

Forty five minutes later a South Brunswick police officer stopped to see if she was OK. When he saw the situation she was in, he contacted his dispatcher and had them arrange a sort of bucket brigade where police cars transferred her from township to township, with her hopping into a new cop car at each jurisdiction border, until finally an East Windsor officer delivered her to our front door, safe and sound.

I wrote a letter of thanks and sent it to the chief of police in South Brunswick.

Apparently this is rare because he wrote back and personally thanked me, letting me know that my letter was added to the personnel files on the two officers in the car that night, and thanking me for taking time to recognize them. He said any time we needed anything in his town to let him know. We jokingly referred to the letter as our “get out of jail free” card.

27

I ordered some miscellaneous stuff from Bed Bath & Beyond. For some reason, they shipped some of it in two packages, one via UPS and one via FedEx. They sent me both tracking numbers, and sure enough, both said they were delivered the same day.

When I got home, my doorman said he had no packages for me, which was weird because I had checked the tracking info at work. No packages at my door. No packages at my neighbors’ on the floor. My best guess is both packages were left at my door and some miscreant in the building swiped them. (That’s why you’re supposed to leave shit with the doorman! Argh.)

Anyway, I dashed off a quick email to BB&B explaining my predicament, and saying that I would just go to the meatspace store the next day and asking if I could get a refund. I expected they would be suspicious (who loses two packages from different shipping companies simultaneously?) But they wrote back with a profuse apology and issued the refund to my credit card right away.

28

I think I’ve written about this before, when we (myself, my 4 months pregnant wife and 18 month old son) were returning from our honeymoon, flying from New Zealand to Australia, there was a huge dust-storm that closed down Sydney airport for most of the day, as a result the aircraft that was supposed to take us home hadn’t even left Australia. When we got the airport at about 10am we were able to get onto a shuttle flight from Christchurch to Auckland.

Then we had to run from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, check-in and race to the other end of the terminal (of course) and get onto a flight back to Sydney (on an A380 – sweet!).

Once we landed at Sydney International we were processed through a separate customs line, loaded on a bus and driven to the domestic terminal and then had to get to the other end of that to catch our flight home.

We arrived in Canberra at 11pm with our luggage on the next (and last) flight in at 11:30pm. By the time we had collected our bags it was close to midnight. My wife and son were both absolutely exhausted and stressed. My sister and her partner had brought our car to the airport so I went out to meet them.

When I drove back to the pickup area my wife came out the door with three police officers in tow, two big guys hauling our bags and female officer with the 18 month-old asleep over her shoulder. They had seen my wife looking at the end of her rope with the kid sleeping next to her and had made sure she was OK
:smiley:

They got a nice letter to their boss and one to the letters-to-the-editor section of our local newspaper giving them a huge thank you.

29

Not quite in the same league as some of these stories, but my story happened just today, and I thought of this thread at the time. So I’ll share:

Today, I got some gas for the car, and thought I’d get some coffee from the gas station’s convenience store. Only there was no coffee in the pots. When I asked, the clerks had a minor disagreement about whose turn it was to make coffee, and one did eventually set about making a pot.

When it was ready, I got a cup and fixed it the way I like it. When I went to pay for the coffee, neither of the clerks would take my money. “It should have been there, but you had to wait for it to be made, so it’s on us.”

30

I have several “great service” stories, but mostly from long ago. (It’s not that I’m getting bad service now, just that my life is tame and stay-at-home.)

My car engine caught fire once on the Las Vegas Strip. I pulled into a gas station, threw a guy my keys, and said I was going to play Blackjack for a while. :smack: When I came back, I think he wanted $1.89 for some part. In Reno, Nevada I had ongoing carburetor trouble with a Triumph Spitfire (By now I’m unsure if that was the same car that caught fire in Las Vegas). I left it at a shop, went back a few days later. The German-accent proprietor explained all the unsuccessful attempts and experiments he made. They were mostly meaningless to me, so I interrupted and asked what I owed. “Nothing,” he said, looking surprised. “I couldn’t fix it.”

Another episode of great service occurred after landing at LAX after an unusual approach I’ve mentioned at SDMB earlier. On the flight from San Jose, my colleague Jim realized he’d forgotten his passport :smack: , our pilot had radioed to contact Jim’s wife; she raced to San Jose airport; Jim’s passport was placed onboard a PSA plane to LAX. However the PSA arrival was a few minutes after our Lufthansa departure. And PSA and Lufthansa were at opposite ends of the giant Los Angeles airport.

It looked hopeless. Lufthansa wouldn’t even talk to us despite that our tickets were First Class(*). But we explained the problem to the PSA agent and, despite that the revenue from the PSA Instapak was trivial, he helped us. He posed us in an authorized PSA vehicle, raced to get the Instapak immediately after the door opened, raced to the opposite end of the airport where … the Lufthansa jet had been delayed by someone else’s emergency. PSA got a very complimentary letter.

(* - I usually traveled cattle class; I think this was first and last 1st-Class ticket I’ve had. Flight was booked on short notice; only 1st-Class seats were available.)

31

A few years ago I had a 10K race at the Toronto Metro Zoo. My husband (boyfriend at the time) met me at the hotel the night before and told me that he had blown a tire on the way to work and was driving on the “donut” spare, so he could either drop me at the race and get the tire fixed and meet me after to walk around zoo - thus missing me at the finish line - OR we could hustle out after the race and get to a garage. I said to get the tire fixed while I ran so we could have a nice afternoon at the zoo after (admission was included in the race fee.)

So I crossed the finish line and texted him to say I was done. He replied “I know, I’m looking right at you.”

Turned out he went to the Canadian Tire near the zoo and was told he’d have about a 2.5 hour wait. He said, “I know this isn’t your problem, but my girlfriend is running the 10K at the zoo and it would mean a lot to her if I was at the finish line. Is there any way to speed this up?” They bumped him ahead and had him out of there in 45 minutes, in time to get back and get an awesome picture of me crossing the finish line. :slight_smile:

I wrote an e-mail to corporate AND sent that location a hand-written thank-you card.

32

We ordered a bunch of magnets with our company information on it to use as give aways at a housing fair to be held on Saturday. They arrived the Friday before the fair with the wrong freaking phone number on them.

I immediately pulled the order, called the company, got the boss and pointed out it was their mistake and what were they going to do to correct it?

Saturday morning at 9 a.m. UPS delivered the correct magnets.

33

I’m in South Jersey and right now we’re in between two heat waves. The last one was pretty nasty - 99 degree days, heat index at 110, etc. My air conditioner (central air) stopped cooling just as that one was starting. Took 4 calls but PSEG finally came out, said I had a leak and added refrigerant. This story isn’t about them.

About a week later, the A/C is freezing up (I can literally see ice on the outside condenser on a 95 degree day). I call PSEG, they come out the next morning (took only one call) and said the leak was bad, and they can’t add more refrigerant due to EPA regs. I need a new one. Doh.

The heat wave broke that day - Thursday - and it’s honest-to-god 72 degrees out. It’s gorgeous. I start calling around to see if I can get my AC replaced maybe early the next week before it started getting really hot out again. The next few days were going to be warm, but not god awful, though the end of the following week looked worse.

PSEG doesn’t have any appointments, and a supervisor was going to have to call me back in 24-48 hours. Still haven’t heard from them. Of two local contractors, one answered the phone but couldn’t come out to give me an estimate until Monday (5 days away) and the other didn’t answer their phone.

The last company I called - Horizon - was a little larger company, in the “medium-sized business” category. They answered the phone. They sent an estimator out that afternoon. He was running a little late and called me from his last appointment and said as much and made sure it was ok. He came out, took a look at it, sat down, worked through the figures and gave me an estimate on the spot for a couple different options.

He then took a look at his schedule and said … we can do this tomorrow afternoon. Since its cool out, we’re not as busy as we were (in the previous two weeks when it was 100+) and he needed to keep his guys busy since he was paying them anyway. He then proceed to say that he’d install the better unit at the lower price and knock off another 700 due to company and manufacturer’s rebates if he could schedule it.

The next day, the team showed up when they were supposed and installed the new AC unit quick and efficiently and even wore booties over their shoes to not track mud in the house. Great job and walked me through everything. I usually don’t have this much luck with service people…

34

A few years back I dropped my car off at a local garage for an oil change and general look-over before taking a couple of longish trips alone. I told them about my trips and that my husband wanted them to go over the car from headlights to taillights and if there was anything, anything, that they’d take care of in their wife or daughter’s car before such a trip, to go on and fix it. Don’t even call to ask permission or give an estimate, just take care of it. With a blank check like that, I expected them to at least change some filters or something. No, they just changed the oil and advised me I’d probably need new brakes in about 3-6 months and they’d recheck them when I came in for the next oil change.

Earlier this summer I was shopping for a spinning wheel and had wonderful experiences with both places I went for test drives. The second place really went above and beyond, though. They’re one of the fiber arts retailers, and I understand why. I had done some online research and narrowed the field to a handful of possibilities, so I emailed the shop to see which ones they had in stock to try out. I got a reply within 12 hours, along with suggestions of a couple models I hadn’t previously considered. When I went to the shop, they didn’t have one of the wheels I really wanted to try out on the floor, so the young lady helping me went to the stock room, pulled that wheel, unpacked, assembled, and oiled it for me. When I decided that was the one I wanted, she disassembled it, packed it back up, and had someone carry it out to the car for me. The wheel in question folds small enough to fit in a carry-on bag and weighs 11 pounds, so the disassembly and carry out were both totally unnecessary, but they wanted to be absolutely sure nothing happened to my new toy on the trip home. Awful nice folks.

35

Yes. Since I started managing people, I make a point of sending complimentary emails when appropriate - I understand just how useful they are when I’m working on things like evaluations. I’m not in a position to determine raises, but being able to say “look at this awesome thing my supervisee did” is awesome - I think I feel as great telling them I got it as they do getting it. :slight_smile:

36

One more I just recalled. A…friend of mine was looking to put in a 110V hot tub. He already had an electrical outlet outside, but wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. So he went to the city to ask about permit requirements. The lady at the desk wasn’t sure, and went back to talk to the engineers. A few minutes later, she came back and said “You weren’t here, and you didn’t ask that question.”

Apparently even the engineers thought the permit technically required for that was a joke.
(Said friend did not end up installing a tub like this.)

37

Nope, they were the new tires that had come on the car. My husband made sure to point that out, and the guy said “We know.”

38

About five years ago, my wife and I were flying from Kansas City to Los Angeles. We waited in the security line for about 20 minutes, and right as we got up to the X-ray machine, my wife turned to me and said, “I’m about to lose my pocket knife!”

This was a knife that her Dad had given to her, and she used it all the time to cut down the straws at fast-food places so the kids could drink without spilling, and to cut holes in the chocolate milk caps.

I was rather annoyed and whispered, “Losing your knife may be the LEAST of our worries.”

We go through the machine and the TSA guys are hustling over to the conveyor belt, running it back and forth, and then one of them picks up her purse and asks, “Who owns this bag?”

She goes up to claim it and the TSA guy ushers us over to a booth. She said, “I realized right as I put my bag on the conveyor belt that I had forgotten to take my pocket knife out.”

He went through the bag and got the knife and opened it up. The blade was just at 4 inches long (or possibly a little under). He looked at her and said, “Well, you’re lucky the blade is not any longer, or this conversation would be taking a completely different turn, and we’d have to get a Law Enforcement Officer over here. As it is, you have three choices: Give us the knife, mail it back to your house, or take it out to your car.”

I told him we had plenty of time for me to take it back to the car, and so he escorted me out of the security area and handed me the knife.

When I got back inside the security area, I sought him out and thanked him, saying, “You know, the TSA gets a lot of bad press, but you really handled that professionally. Thank you.”

He looked at me and said, “Well, not all of us are jerks.”

39

A few years ago I hosed my computer by spilling soda on it. I had warranty coverage for accidental damage, so I called Dell. They sent an empty box, I mailed the laptop off, and it was returned a few days later with basically everything replaced. I turned it on and immediately realized that 1) I needed to reinstall Windows XP and 2) I had absolutely no clue where the OEM discs were that had come with the computer when I bought it.

I called Dell around 9pm that night to tell them that I couldn’t find my Windows installation CDs and could they help me, or did I have to go buy another copy of Windows? They told me they would send me some more CDs.

I checked my mail at 10am the following morning to find a padded envelope from Dell containing Windows XP and all the drivers, which I hadn’t even realized I’d need. Never paid a thing for any of it, and my computer was up and running normally a couple hours later. I still have no idea how that package got there in 12 hours.

40

One time I was flying back from Orlando after the Princess Half Marathon. As the spouse of an airline employee I fly under his passes but as “standby”. Due to the flights being full on the way back, I purchased a ticket on another airline (still under his passes, they’re all Star Alliance.) Well that flight - and every subsequent one - was extremely oversold due to the Princess being scheduled the same weekend as a Nascar race and a football game, IIRC - and there was no way on God’s green earth I’d be getting on that airline that day. So I ran to the terminal for our airline and explained my situation to the desk agent. A flight was departing for Toronto in a few minutes and there was ONE EMPTY SEAT - she booked me on it and had her colleague escort me to security and through the crew line - bypassing the passenger’s line - and I was able to catch that flight right home. I could have hugged them both.