customer service - Surviving and Thriving

My daughter, who has a chronic illness, often deals with bureaucracies. Once she told me something very wise: If you don’t get the answer you want, ask it again – just in a different way.

This is an excellent tactic for all sorts of customer service issues. Here’s how it shook down for me earlier this week.

Some time ago DF and I bought a set of flannel sheets on clearance. DF thinks it was early spring, because he seems to recall that snow was still on the ground. Since our current linens weren’t yet completely raddled, we put the new set on a closet shelf.

Fast-forward to seven or eight (or more) months. Time to use the new sheets! But when DF opened the package, planning to hang them on the clothesline to air, he noticed one edge of the top sheet was ragged. Not just badly sewn, but torn and scraggly.

And of course we didn’t have the receipt. Taping it to the package would have been intelligent.

So often we encounter lackluster, slipshod or outright lousy customer service. Not today, though.

I’ve had an AT&T Universal Mastercard since 1992. One of the things I appreciate is its connection to the Citi Thank You Rewards program. A perennial frugal hack for me is using credit rewards programs to pay for birthday and Christmas shopping, as well as for restaurant gift cards to treat my hosts when I travel.

Since Christmas is closing in, I checked today to see if I had enough points for a specific gift for my daughter and son-in-law.

Turned out that I needed 14,000 points for the item. I had 12,585 with 1,226 more points waiting to be credited on Nov. 21. In other words, I was 189 points short and the next batch wouldn’t hit my account until Dec. 21 — a little late for ordering the present.

I said, “Oh, well, I’ll give an IOU for the gift and order it on Dec. 22, then. Thanks anyway.”

The customer service rep said, “Let me talk to my supervisor.”

Customer service: How to get the answer you want.

Adventures in (good) customer service.