Doing Customer Service Right

Did you ever have a customer service experience that was both embarrassing and pleasant? Let me tell you how Bed Bath & Beyond earned a loyal customer.

Shortly after moving into our condo, Roland and I took inventory to see what accessories we needed to make it a comfortable home. We are both avid readers and there are no ceiling lights like we had at the house, so our list included lamps.

That Saturday we made a shopping trip to Bed Bath & Beyond. We also went to Lowe's, which is just a little farther down the street. After buying two bedside lamps and a few other things, we returned home.

Roland's bedside lamp never did turn on easily, so he loosened the switch. Then I turned the light on while dusting and the switch fell apart. Since then, Roland has been after me to exchange the lamp.

I pass Bed Bath and Beyond every Saturday on my way to my writers' group, but I procrastinated over returning the lamp because I couldn't find the receipt. That puzzled me since I am very meticulous about keeping records of my expenditures. But I kept looking for a Bed Bath & Beyond receipt for the lamps without luck.

Roland assured me that the store could find the transaction in its computer, so this past Saturday I gave in. Since I didn't want to wander around Bed Bath & Beyond with a lamp I had already paid for, I took it straight to the service desk. Unfortunately, the customer service representative said she couldn't locate the transaction without an item number, which I didn't have. She then asked another employee for help, and he went to see if he could find the same lamp. He couldn't, and neither of them recognized the lamp as one they sold. Still, Roland had been positive we bought it there, and so was I.

When the male employee couldn't find the lamp online, either, he offered me a store credit for the price of the closest thing he could find. I declined because I needed two matching lamps and already had one working one. So I walked out of the store with the lamp and hoped that Lowe's would have a replacement switch to solve the problem.

Even though I was positive we bought the lamp at Bed Bath & Beyond, when I arrived at Lowe's I decided to look at its lamp collection just in case. And there it was. I felt like a total idiot.

I appreciate the way the Bed Bath & Beyond employees handled the situation. I had no evidence of the purchase and could have been trying to rip off the store by returning a defective item I hadn't bought there. But I probably sounded as sincere as I was--I really did believe I had bought the lamp there--and store personnel made the decision to keep a customer happy. By doing so, they turned a now-and-then customer into a long-term one.

The Lowe's employees also deserve a thank-you for their friendly service in exchanging the lamp without the receipt I probably had at home.

Because sometimes stores do customer service right.

The Customer is Always Wrong

"Wait," you say, "don't you mean 'the customer is always right'?" No, I don't.

Thursday evening I kicked off my slippers and sat back in my recliner to watch new episodes of "Househunters" and "Househunters International" on HGTV, which was part of our AT&T U-verse subscription. When they were over, I went to bed happy.

Friday morning I wanted something to watch while exercising, so I turned on HGTV. Did I get it? No. I got TLC instead. I like some TLC shows, but others are rubbish, and this was one of the latter. (I think the title was, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.") A news feed scrolling across the bottom stated that Scripps (the owner of the HGTV channel) was denying us our HGTV. The news feed also provided information on contacting Scripps through AT&T U-verse.

I don't know who's at fault, and I don't care. I realize there are more important things in life than TV, but HGTV and some of the other Scripps channels involved in the dispute (including DIY Network, Food Network, and the Cooking Channel) are among the few wholesome offerings out there.

Unlike the news feed suggested, I didn't want to contact Scripps. Nor did I want to use a cookie-cutter complaint. I wanted to send AT&T an individual message that said something like, "If you think Scripps is engaging in unfair practices, file a complaint with the FCC. If you think Scripps' conduct is anti-competitive, file a complaint with the FTC. But if you want to keep me as a customer, get HGTV back."

The problem? No matter how much I searched the AT&T website, I couldn't find an e-mail address. I couldn't even find a contact form or an online chat room. When I thought I was filling out a contact form or an online chat inquiry, I received an automated response that no FAQs matched my search. Even my computer-savvy son couldn't find what I wanted.

Yes, I know that AT&T is running a business and times are tough. I understand that customer service representatives cost money and that many questions can be answered as FAQs. I also understand the efficiency in making customers check online FAQs before sending an unnecessary e-mail that someone must sort through and respond to. But AT&T seems to have forgotten who's generating the company's income. If it can't keep its customers happy, it won't have a business to worry about.

AT&T does provide a telephone number to call, and the number does reach a real person eventually. And maybe a customer service representative could have provided me with an e-mail address. But why should I have to go through all that trouble? Especially since the frustrating process could (and surely often does) lead callers to take out their frustration on a customer service representative who is doing the best he or she can.

I sympathize with the people who answer customer service calls, and my complaint isn't about them. Once I reach a live customer service representative (at AT&T and most places), I'm usually satisfied with the response. No, my argument is with the companies that think efficiency and cost-savings are more important than customer service.

If customers are even sometimes right, companies should want to hear from them. The men and women who panned for gold in California and Alaska were willing to sift through tons of gravel and sand and pyrite to find an ounce of gold because they knew the result was worth the effort. By making it so hard to contact them, companies like AT&T are saying all customer input is fool's gold. Or, to phrase it differently, their actions have coined a new slogan: The customer is always wrong.

Someday they'll discover how short-sighted that is.

Postscript: Sometimes companies do get it right. I use Verizon Wireless for my family's cell phone service, and my husband and I recently upgraded our phones. Each phone was supposed to come with a $50 rebate, which I sent in right away. One of the rebates went smoothly, but today I got a card in the mail saying there was a problem with the other one. The card gave me a telephone number to call, and although I had to go through a menu to get there, it did give me the option of talking to a real person. The wait time was just a minute or two, and the person looked up my file, put me on hold for another minute or two, and returned to tell me the problem had been fixed and I would receive the rebate in the mail in about 15 days. I wish I could remember the woman's name (she did give it), but Verizon gets five stars for its customer service.