It’s become so rare to get effective, prompt customer service that I just had to share this experience.  My mom is currently on a long trip to South America and the Galapagos islands and so her communications have been limited to sporadic email.  Before she left on her trip she put her Netflix account on temporary suspension, but unbeknown to her they had already shipped her two DVDs right before she changed her account status.  While sailing towards the Galapagos she was able to check her email (how cool is that!) and had a note from Netflix saying that she had two of their DVDs and if they weren’t returned promptly she’d be buying them.  She attempted to contact them but was only able to find their 800 number and since she couldn’t call it didn’t do her much good.  So she shot me an email and asked if I could handle it for her.

Yesterday I logged into mom’s Netflix account and found the customer service number.  Right under the number is a status message giving the current wait time on the 800 number.  Seeing that it was less than a minute I called and within 30 seconds I was talking to a rep and one minute after that we had the issue resolved.  As any of the 13 year old girls on my daughter’s soccer team would say, "O-M-G!"

The status message on the website is a great feature that Netflix provides and having a staffer answer the phone who is obviously empowered to use a little creativity to fix the problem is a massive winner in my book.  I’ve been a Netflix fan for years, but this really is icing on the cake.

By the way this happened the same day that I had a not-so-smooth experience with our van.  The battery died and since it was still under warranty we took it back to the dealer to trade it it.  The customer service was fine and the folks very helpful, but the system they have to deal with is a little tortured.  Despite the fact that I had the receipt showing that the battery had indeed been purchased there and was less than 24 months old they still had to do a load test to verify that the battery was dead. That was fine and the load test showed that our battery was as dead as a doornail, but unfortunately the tester that they’d found wasn’t the official Mazda load tester that spits out a receipt that’s required in order to get the new battery.  After searching for about 20 minutes they found the official load tester and were able to get me my new battery, but it took about 45 minutes.  In my mind once they found that the battery was dead they should have given me the new battery and dealt with the receipt issue after I was gone, but because the parts department wouldn’t release the battery without the receipt the service department had to find the right tester before I could get it.  In other words the dealership made their problem my problem.  To their credit their service employee didn’t push me aside despite being very busy, so two thumbs up for him.  To their discredit they have a system in place that puts unnecessary stress on the customer.

Still, yesterday was that rarest of occasions: a good customer service day.