this might mean someone you frequently use, but don’t necessarily ‘like’, per se’ (i.e. Walmart)… or it could mean a company you like, but don’t necessarily use (i.e. the St. Jude foundation)
Mine include:
Toyota - I’m a big fan of their 4Runner
Titleist - more psychological I’m sure, but I always seem to hit them better
Southwest Airlines
Anheuser Busch - i.e. Bud / Bud Light
Google - why anyone else (yahoo, etc) even has a search-engine is beyond me
Chase Bank - they’ve always done right by me
Home Depot - can’t really explain why I prefer them over Lowe’s
Facebook
Amazon
Chili’s - as far as mid-level chains go, they always seem reliable
Kohl’s
The Hudson’s Bay Company, founded May 2, 1670. North America’s oldest commercial enterprise. It’s 342nd birthday is this Wednesday. It must be doing something right to be in business that long.
I agree with Chase bank. And although I don’t really like what Walmart does to small business, their groceries got me through some lean times back in college.
Agreed. My dad likes to tell the story of when my grandfather ordered gloves from them.
In the early 80’s, my grandfather lost his right hand, so when he needed new gloves, he always just threw out the right glove, because he had no use for it, and you can’t really donate one glove to Salvation Army/Goodwill. Someone had told him that LL Bean makes good gloves, so the next time he needed a glove, he called them up (being before the internet and all, and not living near their retail store in Maine.)
Figuring he’d be nice and only order the one glove he needed, and save LL Bean some money, he told the person taking his order that he only needed a left glove, as he had no right hand, but was glad to pay full price so long as the glove was of good quality. The customer service agent then said that since he was paying for two gloves either way, why don’t they send him two left gloves so they would last twice as long?
So from then on, he would always say that LL Bean was one of the last company’s to treat their customers right, and always bought gloves from them, though obviously only half as often.
People like to give Comcast a ration of shit, but I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them, and only about 3-4 internet outages total in more than 10 years.
Giant Eagle - a Ohio/Pennsylvania grocery store chain.
They may not be the cheapest grocery store around but they do have a huge selection with some pretty unique stuff, they have good deals if you look out for them, they have cool services (salad bar, ready-made food, dry cleaner, bank, child care), they have the good self checkout lanes (that are actual lanes and not those useless single-bag stations), all of the folks at the pharmacy at my local GE are top-notch and their customer service is generally good.
On top of all that, they give you off gas if you use their affiliated gas station Get-Go, and you get off food when you buy gas there!
Maui Jim. Their sunglasses are expensive as hell, but they’re backed with an extremely generous repair/replacement policy and excellent customer service.
Apple** has been one hell of a story as well. I just don’t think their product line is as important or as influential as the three above. Others disagree.
Second-tier:
Coca-Cola
Boeing
ATT
Smuckers*
*Makers of Jif creamy peanut butter, my #1 favorite brand of anything in the world.
Except, possibly, for diet coke.
The day my doctor says “In order for you to spend any more quality time on this planet, you must give up the Diet Coke and the peanut butter” is the day my life, the enjoyable part of it, is officially over.
Wegman’s
Trader Joe’s (I worked for them… they treat their employees very well.)
Adobe
Honda
Chick-Fil-A (They could double their revenues by staying open on Sundays for the church crowd, but they’re sticking to their beliefs. Say what you want about their political agenda, I admire their integrity.)
I really, really want to say Google, but based on their privacy issues and complete “F-U” attitude toward their loyal users lately, they’re off my list.
