Good Customer Service

Good customer service is hard to come by. When you do get good customer service, you need to tell people. We always tell people when a company sucks. Let's tell people when they don't suck. And I am telling my story.

In early September, I got a letter in the mail from Citibank accompanying 2 new credit cards. "This is odd", I thought. The cards don't expire for another year. I read the letter and it explained that they had loaned my account information to some computer hackers in China and then later determined that they might try to compromise my account to purchase classified military specs during the upcoming Clinton Administration.

"Okay", I thought. Not that big of a deal, I guess. A couple of weeks later I realized that it's been a while since I got any email notifications from Citibank. You see I set up my account to let me know when the new statements were ready and also to let me know when payments were due. What a great arrangement!

Unfortunately, as I logged onto my account, a message informed me that it was directing me to my new account. The next screen revealed that my payment was due a couple of days earlier. I immediately called Citibank and explained my story. They said the account options do not transfer when a new account is open. Therefore it was necessary to reset the email notifications that I wanted. The CRS (customer service representative) took a check-by-phone and I paid my balance-in-full as I always do. I asked if there was going to be a late fee and she said probably not.

Probably so. The next statement came (by email notification!) and ta-da! A $30 late fee. Ugh!!! I called up Citibank. After 20 minutes of navigating through their fun-filled "speak menus", I finally caught up with Drew. I quickly gave him the background and requested leniency. You see, not only did I miss this payment, but because I also have my Exxon Speed Pass and my Cingular autopay tied to my credit card, I missed those payments, too. In 2.1 seconds he responded, "Done, I've removed the fee from your account."

Hooray!!! That was quick and awesome. As you may remember from an older post titled, "Companies That Suck", I didn't have quite the same experience with Advanta.

And a quick More Companies That Suck, let's add Hop's restaurant. There is one in Owings Mills, MD. If you go there for lunch, give yourself an hour and a half. If you go with 4 people, don't expect to return to work on the same day. If you're thirsty, bring your own beverages. They'll give you the first one, but there's only one blind work-release waitress on duty and she ain't got time for you! "He can't tell me what to do!" is a common expression heard.

I have been there about 3 times in the past few months, each organized by someone else and attended by me under protest. The last time we gave ourselves an hour and a half. At the end of that time, we informed the manager (for the 4th time) that we were leaving. He kept insisting that it would be out shortly. I could have walked to Red Robin and cooked it myself, eaten it, and walked back in this amount of time. This is the worst restaurant in Owings Mills and possibly in all surrounding zip codes.