The rarity of good, old school, customer service

I got a Bose Wave radio for my wife years back.
She had trouble with it & callewd service. They
sent another one UPS over nite and said send the
bad one back in the new box post paid ($1100).

She plays it everyday and is very happy (me too!)

The last time I went looking for a car loan, I gave my business to the first bank that had a person instead of a computer answer the phone. I was sure to tell them that was the reason also.

Good deal. I go out of my way to take care of my customers. People are not use to that. Its like they are in shock when they get taken care of. Kind of sad. But if you run a business and you are aware of it. It can be a huge advantage as far as building a customer base.

Waldo

IMHO, the definition of good customer service has been whittled away over the years. Typically, when I call a new vendor (whom I expect to give my money to), I get the six layers of the phone qauntlet before I am connected to the person who can help me, or their voice mail. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being introduced to a company that has not forgotten what good, personal, customer service is all about.
We have an older Scotchman ironworker/shear that we seldom use to punch steel. I have never bought new punches for this machine; we had an assortment that came with the machine when we bought it used 35 years ago. I asked a friend in the business where he buys his tooling from for his three ironworkers. He told me about the Cleveland Punch & Die Company, and gave me the number. I found their website and gave them a call. What a pleasure. A real person answered the phone, transfered me to Michael, and he walked me through what items would work with my machine. This morning, I inventoried what we had and what we needed, and place an order with them. Ten minutes later, I had an email confirmation (personalized I might add) of my order.
Trust me, I like high tech and fast service as much as the next guy. But many companies use technology as an excuse to forgo personal interaction with customers.

BTW, the parts I ordered were less than a quarter of the price that me, or my maintenance guys guessed they would be.