Finding Customer Service in 2010

Many clients and prospects I work with feel customer service is a lost art. There are articles in magazines on a regular basis about being passed off to inexperienced employees, automated systems, or even just being ignored.

Perhaps one of the things all of us need to do as consumers is recognize great customer service more often. Whether it's in the form of a tip, a special note to their manager, a Facebook update, or a piece in a blog - taking the extra five minutes to recognize great service may just promote more of it in this country.

Tonight I had great customer service. A Delta faucet I bought November 29, 2010 started to give me trouble. I know the date as I still had the receipt. So at 8 pm, I called Delta's 1-800 number and thought I'd be told to leave a message. Nope - a live person answered the phone, took my contact information, apologized for the issue, and ordered new parts be sent to my home immediately - for FREE! No request for a copy of the receipt, no interrogation about whether or not I was using the faucet properly - just "your parts will be shipped and we'll send you an email when they are." I nearly dropped the phone.

More great customer service - I recently had some neighbors work on my garden. I have no idea what to do with plants anymore - half the time I put shade plants in sun, or sun plants in shade - I'm a lousy gardener. My gardeners called me every morning they couldn't show because it was raining (which was several the last few weeks), they explained everything they did to the garden, and they brought their receipts for the materials along with their invoice for everything plus labor right to my door. Great service - paid them instantly - actually looking forward to them coming back.

What positive customer service stories have you had recently? Share a few via comments and I'll include them in this blog. Perhaps we can inspire each other to give a little more in return.

Steph