"Don't trash us in your blog"

Recently I had two, very different, customer service experiences. 

In the first case, I had a very unpleasant experience at Sam's Club.  The employee took my money, card, and receipt, held me hostage while she tried to fix the mess she made, and actually told me to shut up when I asked for my money, or receipt.  Needless to say I left the store Very Unhappy. 

I would have stopped shopping there entirely, but Ron is the boss and said no.  They did everything wrong.  I left feeling abused, undervalued, and unappreciated.  I felt my concern (hijacking my entire flatbed, taking my money, no receipt, etc.) had NOT been addressed and it could happen again. 

In January, I switched from T-mobile to Cricket.  I liked the plans, and I loved the phone (still do).  They were the only ones who had the phone I wanted, and it was only $50. 

I happily signed up.  I was promised various things and told we had been signed up for auto-pay. 

You can imagine how I felt when my phone service was cut off due to "nonpayment" last week.  Ron and I went to the Cricket kiosk at the mall. 

Ron roared at them, we told them the problem, and they immediately looked into it.  Without any prompting, they told me "The guy screwed up, this is unacceptable, we're going to fix this."  And they did. 

My phone is working fine now, we have the auto-pay working, they showed me the confirmation. 

I went in with a problem and they went through the three steps:
Admitted they screwed up (Sam's never did that and I was angriest about that)
Said they were sorry (Again, I never saw this at Sam's)
Worked to fix the problem and keep it from happening again (Sam's?  Ha!)

I work very hard to do this myself, when I have a customer complaint.  They don't have to shop with me, and if I want their business sometimes I have to earn it. 

Ron called the Cricket district manager and related what had happened.  He mentioned my blog, that I get thousands of hits a month (I do). 

"Please don't trash us in your blog" the manager replied.  "Every business has problems..." 

Ron assured him we wouldn't do that.  In fact, I'm holding them up as an example of what a company should do.  They addressed the problem, apologized, and made it right. 

I am happy I have them as my cell phone company.  God forbid I have another issue I know they will "fix it right".