Customer Service outlets

Customer Service is a big pet peeve of mine, and I answer those Rite Aid 800# customer surveys (i could win $10,000e) and the paper surveys at Starwood Hotels and I'll even randomly send in notes to brands I visit with compliments or complaints. It makes me wonder how well we're monitoring complaints and how quickly brands are responding to them and in what way.

I take note of response time, and I'm impressed by recent notes back from Dunkin' Donuts and Jet Blue which uses basic e-mail to respond to queries from their web site. Dunkin Donuts answered my query about styrofoam cups with shared outrage but reminded me that shops are franchises, individually owned. Jet Blue answered my query about breaches in the Customer Bill of Rights, denying that I was due $25.00. I am annoyed by both answers (one, lame; the other, wrong) but I did get a response within 36 hours which helped me feel listened to. Both were sweet-sounding women. I can't tell if they're real or not yet but I am digging.

Of course, there are more modern ways of getting service, such as through microblogging services. Zappos, Jet Blue and BA are on Twitter and are famous for answering customer messages. A savvy writer on my team had Zappos and JetBlue bid against each other for his tax refund.  The Consumerist, Pissed Consumer, and the Squeaky Wheel are all about anger and you getting yours out.  Measured Up is my new favorite, because it includes amusing stories with the expected nasty ones about Time Warner Cable.

Brands should remember, it's not just what the response is which matters; what matters is there is one at all.

Yeah, they got that (if you can find it)

Adopting the green bug is harder than it seems.

I go to Staples to buy 100% recycled paper for our home printer, and I have to walk past reams and reams of earth-killing wasteful non-recyclable paper and then go downstairs to hunt for the green stuff. There's a small row of it, which I proudly buy

At the cashier, I gently ask the cashier if they couldn't make it more prominent but he ignores me. (This is only worse than a cashier uptown at a deli I frequent who didn't know the Olympic Games were coming to China this summer)

After Twittering about it, I realize that Twittering is just venting and I can do much more by writing to Staples about it. You can too. Ask them to make the 100% recyclable paper more prominent. They should be leading the effort, not just making token effort.