Turnaround: Who has exceptional customer service?

JetBlue. I love JetBlue’s customer service. Because I fly so often, I get lots of chances to use Customer Service. Often, it’s to change a flight. I always have a great experience. The few times when there was an exception to be handled to my travel, I felt they handled everything with grace and wonderful skill. They even threw me a freebee flight change (value: $30 USD) without me even griping. They even sent me discount coupons without me asking because a flight was delayed significantly once due to weather. I know people think of that one exception in New York that grabbed all the press, but as a frequent flier, I can tell you they’re pros.

I don’t think you meant for this to be “airlinecentric” but living in Taiwan and dealing with 11 hour flights to LA, you are pretty appreciative of good service. My feelings about US airlines is that the service tends to be lackluster possibly due to the professional stewardesses road-weary from all the years of flying and dealing with the public. Think waitress in “flying tin can.” Asian stewardesses tend to be younger and friendlier (smile more). Singapore Air or Malaysia Air get my votes. When you’re dealing with mucho hours in flight and major time-bending those smiles and attention make you a much happier camper.

Disney. Best service- kids can throw up, they don;t bat an eye. Treat you like family.
Ritz Carlton. Service so good and intuitive it almost makes you uncomfortable- makes you feel like someone “important”.
Mandarin Oriental- Same. Outstanding in every respect.
Wegman’s grocery. Everyone is helpful and nice, even at this grocery store chain (started in my home town).
Apple (B+) I’ve had stuff go wrong, but I like being able to schedule genius appt on the web and they are responsive when I go to the store. Customer service people are great, and I love talking to Ireland when I call early in the AM.
Virgin Railways. First class compartment makes you feel like a rock star- much better than other trains in the UK.
Customer service has uniformly gotten pretty crappy, so I actually have gotten to the point where I avoid interacting with CS as much as possible- self- serve has some advantages.

But when I do need a human, there are some horror stories I could tell. Norton/Symantec comes to mind. HP’s people are pretty bad, too.

Matt & I have gotten to the point where for special occasions, we’re willing to spend a bit more for a place with better customer service, more amenities, and just stay fewer days rather than longer at someplace less expensive. The difference in the experience is tremendous.

WalMart has really good service, though I’m opposed to their policy on Commie China products, which are pure garbage.

I follow you on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/vaspers

Barnes & Noble with their anti-RIAA policy of allowing me to return defective CDs for an instant money-back refund.

WalMart does not do this, and has a crappy policy, but the clerks at WalMart are very nice and helpful.

Recently I had a run in with great customer service. Jetblue and UPS. Stuck in Seattle an extra week, Jetblue did not hesitate to credit my account and even offered to help in the process of getting a new ID so I could get home in a timely manner. I took them up on their offer and they were able to help verify my identity and do the communication between the TSA and myself very clearly and were very informative. I will continue to fly jetblue, and I really like the benefits of their loyalty program- I don’t have to have a silly credit card for extra miles and points… it all happens just because I fly with them.

UPS had great customer service when I had to change the address I was to get a delivery at – the day and hour before the package was supposed to be delivered. They never used the word “no” either, which I found surprising. They offered several different options and asked me which would be the best for my situation and did not even add any sort of fee to my complicated delivery. This makes me appreciate UPS more than its competitor FedEx – I was often stuck waiting on the phone for a real person to pick up the line when dealing with them for shipping with them when I was at my old day job. Scheduled pick-up with FedEx was always a joke, and they would often deliver our packages elsewhere.

Interestingly enough, just recently had a great experience with Weight Watchers. I blogged about it here: http://jerryharrington.net/2007/05/25/great-customer-service/ (which happened to be the day before you posted your request!

Chris, What was your ninja move? I’m interested because my wife and I had a terrible experience with US Airways and want to be compensated for it.