I’ve had the pleasure (and displeasure) of dealing with some true extremes in the customer service realm lately. In order to let these deeds be recognized (both the good and the bad!), I’m going to write a few articles about them in some sort of serial format. Some of these are national companies, some are local — for those exceptionally good, I hope to guide some business their way, or at very least help interested parties decide where to spend their hard earned money. For those exceptionally bad… I quite frankly hope to warn off potential customers, or at least help others identify such behavior before suffering through it as I have.

As always, representatives of these companies are more than welcome to submit rebuttals, which I will happily post in full if asked. Legal challenges will be met with the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Every entry on this site is my opinion, to which I am entitled to have and write — if a company doesn’t like what I write, perhaps they’ll work harder to be nice to their customers.

The following section is a list of articles I plan to write — in no particular order. (consider this my scratchpad)

Lapse; How Progressive Insurance planted the only negative on my entire credit report (and one agent finally fixed it!)
No Guarantees; How Century 21 Mortgage talked themselves out of owning up to their own guarantee.
Cups of Plenty; Tervis Tumbler’s Amazing (real!) Lifetime Guarantee
(There are more, but it’s late and I’m drawing a blank)

There are also a number of people I’ve dealt with recently who were true pleasures to deal with… I probably don’t have enough material to write anything substantial about them, but they’re definitely worth mentioning: Mindy at Time Warner Cable, who took the time to find and correct the error of the previous CSR I had spoken with, and smoothed out my upcoming service move; The lovely lady at Jones-Onslow EMC who I only know by voice who similarly helped me arrange for new service at the house I’m buying; Renee at the local Nationwide Insurance office, who not only provided the best quote for my homeowners and auto insurance, but was also great fun to chat with for the hour or more it took to get all the paperwork done (hi, Renee! Don’t forget to register to vote!); and of course the great folks at the Jacksonville NC Mailboxes Etc, who are always friendly and great to deal with.

Since I’m noting both good and bad… if the lady from ONWASA (Onslow Water and Sewer Authority) reads this… stop being such a damned grouch!

(Edit: I met the grouch… and she’s every bit as grouchy in person as she was on the phone!)