It’s no secret I’ve had a run of bad customer service experiences lately. First DirecTV and then LunarPages. Because I believe customers should know what they’re getting into before they do businesses with companies like these, I blogged my experiences. And I’m glad I did.

However, on my LunarPages post, I received the following comment from Gypsie, and she’s right on:

If you have Business of Shame, you need to have a Hall of Fame for great customer service. I had terrific customer service from Farberware.

While it’s good to point out businesses that don’t provide good customer service, it’s also useful to know which companies go the extra mile to please their customers. I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to pay more for a product, if a company takes good care of their customers. Sometimes you do truly get what you pay for, and sometimes the frugal thing to do is to pay more.

So today I want to recognize those companies that do well in the area of customer service.

My most recent great customer service experience came from my local UPS Store. I have a box at the UPS Store #4176 (the one behind Costco, for you local readers) that I use for business.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to mail out a gift card to the winner of a giveaway on Frugal Coast2Coast. I placed the gift card in a homemade card, and placed the addressed card in a plastic sleeve. I’ve mailed cards like this many times before, so I did it without a second thought. I put a stamp on the card, put my UPS box address as the return address, and mailed it from my home mailbox.

A week later, I checked my UPS box for business mail, and the card had been returned for insufficient postage. The UPS Store employee (I’m going to have to get his name, so I can update this post with it) was confused as to why the card came back. Keep in mind he had no obligation to work with me on this, because I had not mailed the card from his store, and I didn’t send it via UPS.

Still, the employee weighed the card to make sure it wasn’t too heavy. It wasn’t. Then he took the time to call the post office to find out why it was sent back. It turns out there was one spot on the homemade card that was thick enough to bump the card into the next postage class. (There was a little bow on the card). Anyway, I owed 21 cents.

I had left my purse in the car, so I told the employee I’d run out to my car to get a quarter, so I could mail the card. He said not to worry about it, and that they’d take care of the postage.

This wasn’t a huge thing, yet it made me feel like the employees at the UPS Store really value their customers and will got the extra mile to take care of them. You can bet if I hear that someone in my area is looking at getting some sort of post office box, I will point them to the UPS Store!

So let’s hear it! What are your great experiences with customer service? Let’s give those companies some recognition!

Photo by zyphbear.