What’s the best customer service you’ve ever seen?

[thebigmaniswatching]

I’ve just been reading the kindness thread and someone mentioned Virgin trains, I was travelling with then a few weeks ago and both ways their staff were great.

On the way, a last sat next to me and realised she’d got on the wrong train, right destination but wrong time, the train manager was really kind to her as she was panicking and explained what she needed to do. Then as we arrived at our destination he did the usual tannoy as we were leaving but added on that there were some children on the train who were going to the pride of Britain awards and gave them a big congratulations.
On the return journey the train was 10 minutes late leaving, we had a connecting train to catch that we only had 9minutes between so we would obviously miss it, as the train manager came to check tickets I asked what time we were going to arrive, he says we might make it if the train manager to make up some time. He must have taken mental note of our destination because as we were approaching the station he started doing tannoys to update us on our specific connecting trains and how they were running, then as we were pulling into the station he did another to say that we should make it, which platform we needed and where was best to get off the train to get to the other platform the quickest, he really went out of his way to make sure we got our trains!

Lakeland, who made a whoospie when I paid next day delivery for an item for a Christmas present and it didn't turn up. They put it in a taxi with a box of chocolates by way of apology

A large popular supermarket which failed to deliver one of my bags of shopping. Apologised at door, rang to apologise again, delivered missing shopping a couple of hours later and REFUNDED THE COST!!! Impressive.

There's a guy who works in the Mobile bit of my Tesco who is absolutely brilliant. He always gives sound advice and isn't just out to do a deal, any deal, like other phone shops. I find it so refreshing.

Rang EE as I was having problems gifting myself data from my little black box that can with my contract. (I have 1gb on my phone and the box has 4gb so I just gift it when I'm low)
The app wasn't loading and I was low on data so rang EE and the lovely man gave me 5gb free as a goodwill gesture, so I didn't need to gift myself the data.

Phoned Netflix when they took my favourite series off in tears (pregnant) and they put it back on for another 6 months

Sainsburys years ago when Christmas booze arrived with my shopping (bottle of vodka, bottle of whisky) but I hadn't been charged for it. I rang customer services who went away and had a think about it, came back and said ‘We don’t normally get calls like this, thank you for being honest. Have it free on us and Merry Christmas!’.

Lakeland - excellent

Apple
I have on multiple occasions accidentally bought apps (usually when I used touch ID before I realised that the app wasn't free). Their system has always refunded this instantly, no questions asked. As this is done automatically, I'm not sure it counts as great customer service, so I would like to nominate Amazon as well.

There's a man who used to be a manager in a cafe we go to quite a bit. He was always brilliant, and would give us a refund a few times without asking, if he felt we'd waited too long or something (at least once we just put it in the tip jar, as didn't feel it was necessary at all). Just all around great.

He's now a co-owner of a shop, and equally great. I'm not local, and don't get chatted at a lot (which I usually appreciate), but it's very nice to always have a nice welcome and a bit of chat with him when I call in. He's gone above and beyond helping me with the stuff I've bought, even when the warranty has run out, and is really knowledgable about everything they sell. I never get a hard sell feeling from him, either.

My local theatre when I wanted to buy a programme. They said they didn't have any left and I asked could he please double check as a I have a programme for every show I've seen and collect them. He couldn't find any but gave me his own copy.

Next - before I fell out with them

Youngest DC tripped and caught the back of his head on a clothes rail. Blood EVERYWHERE. DH picked up bleeding child while I went to ask if they could give me any tissue so I could pad it while I went to the car to get something to cover it. Manageress took the five of us into the staffroom, grabbed the first aid kit to get proper stuff to pad the cut, went out after telling us to sit till he stopped bleeding, came back with a new t shirt for both DS and DH, sent another member of staff round to the cadbury outlet to get something sweet for all the DC's as she decided they were all in shock and rang ahead to the local hospital to let them know we were going to come in.

EE. Very good eggs. My controlling ex Bastard of a partner refused to cancel the broadband when he moved out, yet also neglected to pay the bill meaning the internet got cut off, EE did me a really good deal on broadband and then reinstated the broadband until the new one could be installed despite him not paying the bill, 'under the circumstances'.

Build a bear.

After disasteriously losing a favourite teddy I contacted them via email to ask if any shops had any remaining in the store room (was not one that was still being sold) and to ask of I could pay over the phone and get it delivered .

The uk customer services replied to say
That they no longer had it but that they had forwarded onto the International customer services who would be in touch.

At this point I had written it off tbh

I then receive an email from.said International services asking me to send a photo of the bear .Which i did. A few days later they replied to say they had found one asked for my address and said they had shipped it to uk customer services who would forward it on to me.

All free of charge.

And it arrived shortly after.

Needless to say I sent a rather gushing email thanking them telling them how happy dd was that her favourite teddy and returned from "holiday"

O2 - had a contract phone with them years ago and then got a fantastic deal with work to get an iPhone on contract (when they first came out). I kept putting off cancelling my contract and then forgot all about it (had a baby - was about £20 a month). FOUR years later (yea yea I know) I rang up to cancel. The man I spoke to started to tell me what offers they had to get me to stay and I explained that I'm a dickhead and just hadn't got round to cancelling (in so many words). He asked if I'd mind holding a minute and disappeared.

I spent about 40 seconds rehearsing 'no I REALLY don't want to carry on' and he came back and said 'we're sorry we can't refund the whole 4 years, but we should have noticed the phone was inactive. We can refund 2 is that ok?'

Virgin media were excellent with me as well once (have subsequently been a bit shit). When my mum became ill I changed all her bills into my name (I lived with her) and virgin wrote me a lovely letter saying how sorry they were to hear of my mums illness and that they hoped I would be happy with their service

A company I found on Amazon marketplace that I ordered some organza roll from to decorate the church for a friend's wedding.
Amazon said parcel was shipped and I waited. Weeks. Hermes eventually turned up with -
A Phillips ladyshaver. I wasn't going to have much luck decorating a church with that and time was pressing. The Amazon complaints procedure was terrible and vaugley promised a delivery some weeks later - after the wedding.
I did a little digging and found a direct phone number to the company I'd ordered from.
They apologized, which was nice as it wasn't their fault at all and I explained I really needed my order soon!
Not a problem, their courier van hadn't left yet and they'd put what I ordered on it and it arrived the following morning!
I then went back through the Amazon complaint procedure to try and cancel it so I didn't end up with it arriving twice.
It did anyway.
The company are called Chancery Chair Covers, customer service excellent!

I must also mention the lovely assistant in Sainsbury's who saw me struggling with my grumpy baby and insisted on unpacking all my shopping at the till and bagging all of it so I could cuddle my baby and stop him being quite so grumpy.
That turned a hellish shopping experience into a nice one and I did do a customer service survey thing later where I sang her praises.

I used to work in retail and I had an excellent colleague. She always went above and beyond, including phoning round almost every shop in our chain to get hold of some black ribbon that was needed for a funeral. She always seemed to know where to start looking for things like that. Miss her lots.

Lakeland / "hello I'd like to return x item"
LL - certainly, I have just refunded your account and we will pick the item up in the next day or 2.

Me

Avonandice, Clarks Village?

A shop assistant in Boots was so kind to a very sleep deprived me (young baby, 5 year old, caring for terminally ill relative at home plus trying to hold rest of family together) who had muddled up two shopping lists and bought the wrong things for the wrong people....she sorted it all out and said such kind words to me that I was able to get out of the shop and home with dissolving into tears. Even now I think back and remember that moment she gave me strength to keep going in a very difficult situation.

First choice/Tui. We had booked a holiday and was intending to take out insurance seperatley nearer the time, i was then diagnosed with breast cancer and couldn’t go on the holiday. First Choice were excellent and put our booking on hold regardless of our lack of insurance and couldn’t have been more helpful.

Pub local to me, after we'd just moved into the area. We got a round of drinks and ordered food to the beer garden - 45 minutes later, the food hadn't turned up. We inquired, and the barman said he'd check - we were feeling a bit unimpressed. The manager came out to apologize, and said they'd forgotten our order - refunded the drinks and food we'd already bought (in cash!), said the food would be out in 5 minutes, and could she get us another round of drinks on the house? Couldn't believe it. But of course she won, because we went back a fair few times.

Beauty and the boutique. Ordered some make up online and they sent some love heart sweets in with the order. I commented how nice that was on their Facebook page and my daughter had enjoyed the sweets. A few days later another package arrived from them full of sweets and some necklaces with a note saying thank you for the feedback

Harrods. Got a call about 6pm on my work phone Xmas Eve. Thought fuck that and ignored it. Finally listened to my voicemail boxing day and it was them apologising profusely for not getting my delivery to me Xmas Eve ('cos... Geography). So I phoned back this mobile number expecting to just get a voicemail and get it dealt with when it was dealt with and expecting a call centre type scenario. Nope, straight through to the person in question who then sent out a massive trunk full of (free) goodies by way of apology.

What impressed me MOST was the direct number to the person who called me and not being fobbed off. When he picked up the phone who knew immediately who I was. Fan for life!

Another vote for Lakeland.

I emailed them about an airbrush that I had used a few times but had broken. I had a phone call the same day (a Sunday no less!) and they arranged for a courier to collect my broken airbrush and gave me a full refund, even though I’d bought it about 3 years prior and used it, which they knew.

They were absolutely lovely about it too!

Sainsbury’s. Have done my online shopping with them for years and customer service is always brilliant, even if the local shop muck things up.
Every now and then I try other supermarkets and always return.