Working in a customer oriented job I think makes me hypersensitive to other customer service I encounter. In the last couple of days, I have been amazed at the amazing customer service and care I have encountered. On Tuesday, we got a call from the vet hospital we took Buddy to just to check on him and make sure he was doing ok and we didn’t have any questions. I was amazed that they did this. This morning while driving to work, I got a call from our regular vet (the actual vet not a receptionist mind you) that she had received the report from the orthopedic specialist and just wanted to call and make sure Buddy was ok and that we didn’t need a refill on his meds or anything. Once again, I was amazed. Now, I would like to take this moment to say how much I LOVE Creature Comforts in Ankeny. They are absolutely AMAZING. Dr. Shivers is awesome! As long as we have pets, we will be taking them there. My parents started taking their two doggies there off the recommendation of our family friend and when we got Buddy, of course we went there.
Another example of amazing customer service in the last 24 hours. Last night, I bit the bullet after crunching numbers and crunching them again and reading about a million reviews and agonizing for hours, and bought a new fridge. I also might have had something to do with the time I spent practically standing on my head looking for something in the fridge, or the fact that it took me four attempts last night at one point to get the fridge door closed. I bought the fridge online last, hours before Lowes sale on it ended and their free delivery deal ended. I decided on the purchase long after their stores were closed or I might have gone to the store. Then again, I might not have. I have to admit, I love online shopping! Once I made the purchase, it was noted someone from the store would call me to set up the delivery.
I thought it would be at least a couple of weeks before we would have our new fridge. All the other stores I looked at (American, Home Depot, Menards, Nebraska Furniture Mart) didn’t have the fridge in stock. Guess what, this morning as I was walking in to work, Lowes called and said our fridge would be delivered today between 12 and 2:00…. What!!!!!!!!!! That is crazy fast. Not that I’m complaining. Now, these are also the days that I enjoy having Andrew home during the day. Yeah, it sucks that he works nights sometimes, but he is home during the day for things like this, so I don’t have to leave work and go sit at home for two hours. Don’t think I haven’t also thought about the fact that we could save major buckaroos at some point in the future on daycare costs if he and I are still working split shifts. I can see why this might appeal to people. Would I love to have him home at night so it isn’t just me myself and I chatting it up with Buddy, sure. But, I think him working night shift is also good for us in a lot of ways. I love going home and having some time to unwind after my day. Granted, four hours is a little more time than I would like, but it does give me time to myself to work on my “projects”.
Another happy fact about our new fridge… it comes with an ice maker!!!! I know the one we have now was able to have one because when I was painting the kitchen and had to move the fridge, I saw the spot for it to be run through the fridge. However, it was never installed. Now, I’m going to put on my spoiled rotten pants for a minute here and say I forgot just how much I HATE ice cube trays. Our apartment had an ice maker, and I love it even though it made some funky honking noise from time to time. My parents house has an ice maker and the house before that had an in door water dispenser. So, I can honestly say, I can’t remember the last time I had to use an ice cube tray. I was slightly bummed, however because I didn’t remember seeing the water line run through the floor to the basement, so I didn’t think we were going to be able to have the icemaker installed. However, as I sit at work typing this, Andrew just called to let me know when he moved our fridge out of the way, he found that there was a water line run through the floor to the basement and went down to the basement and verified that it is hooked up down there too! This is the best news I have heard in hours. So in a matter of two hours we should be the proud owners of a shiny new fridge with an icemaker. Queue happy dance here. Now all we have to do is get the other fridge moved out to the garage for overflow. Wish us luck on that project.
Update: I just got a phone call from Andrew asking if I had measured any of the doorways prior to purchasing this fridge? Um, no, but I measured the spot it is going in 4 times, does that count? I guess it doesn’t because I continue to discover the joys of a one hundred year old home… the doorways are non standard. Sweet! The good news, thanks to my quick thinking, is that they will be able to take the handles off and get the fridge through all the doorways in the house. Lovely! Andrew said if I buy one more thing without measuring how to get it in the house he is revoking my appliance purchasing privileges. So lesson learned, measure EVERYTHING.
Now that I am done with my tangent about our new fridge, I would like to mention the one not so happy customer service encounter I have had in the last month involving our former car insurance company. We had to switch companies for our car insurance to take advantage of a multi policy discount with our homeowners insurance and because the company we had was going to raise our rates something crazy for moving. I guess we live in a higher risk area now. Amazing customer service in this scenario is our insurance guy. He ran all the quotes he could to get us the best deal. Not so good customer service was when I called in to the insurance company because I got a letter in the mail saying I owed them money and there was a late fee on it. For starters, I didn’t get a first notice, so I’m not sure how I can have a late fee on something I didn’t know I had to pay and second, their billing notices suck.
The only indication I ever had that I owed them money was on a notice that at the top said renewal information and on one line on the last page in small print and in parenthesis it said ($20.00 due from prior policy). As I explained finally to the supervisor I got on the phone, if something says renewal notice and I’m not renewing, why would I read all the way to the last page and squint my eyes to see if I owed anything? If you want me to pay you money for something I still owe you, you should probably sent me a separate letter (to the correct address since they had it on file but didn’t bother to use it) and put in bold letters FINAL BILLING STATEMENT. Now, that would get my attention. As I explained to her, I work in a job that is very driven by written communication, so I like to think I do a pretty good job of reading everything, including the fine print. I finally got the supervisor to take the late fee off and I paid the other charge to be done with it. However, when I knew more about how their online notification system worked than the supervisor, I had an issue with that.
I will now step off my soapbox and will close with a picture of the new beautiful refrigerator! If you look close, some of you will see your Christmas cards from last year!
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