Good Customer Service

I worked in customer service for a large store for 6 1/2 years; therefore, I have high expectations when it comes to customer service. I make no bones about it, I often call the company. If a store fails in customer service or exceeds in customer service, I call the company. If something breaks, I write the company. I figure it couldn't hurt.

There are 4 companies that stood out to me in the past few months for excellent customer service:

1. San Disk- I had a 2 GB memory card that just stopped working. I'd had it for about 2 years and I wrote the company to see if I could fix it in any way. They sent me a mailing label so that I could send it back via UPS and then replaced it for free. I purchased a card reader several years ago on ebay for almost nothing and when I bought a new memory card it wouldn't read it. I wrote them and they replaced it with a new model (a $30 value). Most of their products carry a 5-year warranty. They will always be my choice for memory equipment for my camera.

2. Lee Jeans- Around Christmas they had a promotion where you could enter every day for a free pair of jeans and they would give away 120 pairs a day. After the first day they changed their promotion where you could only enter once. So thousands of people entered on the first day and couldn't enter again. I think their logic was that if they'd known it would be one entry only, they'd have waited until the end when less people were entering. They complained to the company about the change and everyone that entered on the 1st day received free jeans. It was pretty exciting when the jeans arrived on my door step and they fit great!

3. Pillsbury- The other day I opened the fridge door and noticed that one of our cans of pizza dough had exploded. I called the company and learned that you shouldn't store them in the door due to temperature fluctuations. They sent me a coupon for a free dough and a $1 off 1 dough. That's great customer service when a company replaces something even when it's your fault (albeit I didn't know).

4. Subway- Several months ago there was a promotion for Subway where you could build your own sub and you would get a coupon for a free one. I suspected that the site was a hoax because I could never get the coupon print. I wrote Subway and asked if it were a hoax about 2 months ago and today when I opened the mail box there was a $5 gift card to Subway and an apology for my troubles with their site.

So the moral of the story, before you get mad at a company and tell everyone, make sure to tell them first. Companies want to keep loyal customers!