Where Has All The Customer Service Gone?

I am a shopper.

I have a shopper's car (small SUV).

I buy a Partners Card from The Family Place every year without fail.

But most of all, I love Amazon.

I love Amazon, but I hate what it is doing to customer service.  Now, Amazon actually does a pretty good job when needed -- IF you can find out how to let them know your package wasn't delivered, they'll send you another one, no questions asked.  They don't care if it's UPS's fault or if it was stolen, or whatever the reason, they'll send you another.

This is volume business at it's finest -- just send another one and eat the cost to keep the customer happy.

And it works -- I am happy and pretty much order everything I can from them.  Not sure if I'll use their grocery service when it comes out, but I might.  I love them that much.

NOTE:  I do love Matt & Al and my TV more, but Amazon is right up there.

But here's the rub -- there is no customer service anymore.  The Internet has trained us to not expect much.  It is difficult to even find a phone number to call nowadays.  You have to search and search to find it.  I just searched for a local charity's phone number this morning on their website and finally gave up after about 5 minutes of searching.  Their site wouldn't even let me email their CEO directly or provide me with her email.

NOTE:  This is NOT how we do business at Community Partners of Dallas.  We truly believe that a big part of our success is personal service.  You can call me right now at 214-624-7557 and anyone else here.

But back to my point -- customer service is dead.  So that is why when a company does something extraordinary now, it really means something to me.

My first example is an experience I had with Shutterfly last Christmas -- and I am still thinking about it 10 months later, so that tells you just how extraordinary it is.  I order my holiday cards from them online every year and they do a great job.  This year the return address labels I ordered to match my cards didn't arrive.  I thought, UGH -- I'm sure I won't be able to find a phone number to call or a way to report this easily -- and fired up the desk top (which gets little use now with my I-Phone and I-Pad in the den at all times) and started looking for a way to report the missing package.

Well, what to my wondering eyes did appear but a phone number for Customer Service!  I called and the guy I spoke to was super nice and said they would expedite new labels to me at no charge.  So nice.  But what really made it an amazing experience is that the guy I spoke to SENT ME A HAND WRITTEN THANK YOU NOTE apologizing for the error.

Can you believe that?

The error wasn't even theirs -- the labels came the next day and I called them, but they said to just enjoy the duplicates. 

I have more examples of surprising service -- coming soon! 

Hope you have a great week of super customer service!