Customer Service

So the "several installments" that I mentioned in my previous post have been slow in coming. Sorry...

Now I will tell my story about customer service. Usually people have bad customer service stories, but I have a good one. A few weeks ago I called the phone company to cancel my service at my old apartment. What could easily have been a five minute phone call turned into a thirty minute conversation. I had to verify my address, and it turns out that the lady who was helping me used to live in Boulder in the 70s. She was telling me that she always remembered it being a beautiful and a fun town, and I told her that it's still beautiful and fun, but probably just busier than she remembers. She's now living and working in South Dakota, but she's also lived in San Francisco for a few years. She said that now that she's older and that all her kids are grown up, she wants to come back to Colorado. She said that she missed the mountains and the beauty of the state, and she has always wanted to go whitewater rafting. She loved skiing and would like to go again...

This lady and I pretty much exchanged life stories, and I almost felt guilty about canceling my phone service, but it was a fun conversation. I think that most people of the world approach customer service calls with a bad attitude. They are angry and demanding and they yell and scream. Therefore they have bad customer service experiences. But if you approach the call with a polite, pleasant, and respectful attitude, you get much different service. It's not that surprising. If you treat people nicely, you'll get the same treatment in return. At least that is what my Ma taught me.