Hello. Customer Service Calling.

Wouldn't it be great if instead of you calling a company's customer service number and waiting on hold listening to bad music for an eternity they would just call you? Now before you answer, let me make the deal a bit sweeter. What if they not only called you, they called you at a time of your choosing? Oh yes, one more thing, when they call you tell them you forgot you were having dinner with friends so could they call you back tomorrow at a different time?

How would that be? How would you feel about that company? Would you be surprised and delighted even though technically you were upset about something -- remember you are calling customer service?

Oh how I wish all companies would handle service like this... but for now, I'm just happy that one did -- Vonage. It all started because I have DSL and couldn't figure out how to get my Vonage box in front of my router. Because it was behind the router and the firewall I was having quality problems. My wife had finally had enough and marching orders were given.

So I did what I do. I looked up Vonage on Twitter, found Vonage_Voice and I tweeted my problem and asked for thoughts.

So I DM'd my info and got a DM back saying someone would call me after 6p Central. And they did but I forgot I was going to dinner so when they called I asked if they could call back tomorrow around 7p Central. No problem I was told. But then my phone rang around 2p that next day. It was Vonage. I thought to myself, "Great I can't deal with this now." But all was well, it was just Customer Service confirming our 7pm call. Wow! I confirmed and sure enough, 7p rolls around and I get a call from Customer Service.

The issue proves difficult to fix but after some time we finally get everything working and I go on vacation.

Then yesterday they call again. It's a Customer Service rep assigned to my case and he's wanting to make sure all is still working and I'm not still having issues. I tell him I've been on vacation and haven't really had a chance to use the phone much. So he gives me his full name and direct extension to call should I have any issues. Did you get that? He gave me his FULL NAME and DIRECT EXTENSION. Double Wow!!

And finally I get an email with my case # which states the case has been closed but if the issue pops up again, just call back and use the case number to reactivate the issue ticket.

All of this to say, hey companies, this is how customer service should be done. If you sell a person something and it doesn't work as promised, don't penalize them for calling you. Build your customer service around the realities of their lives. Use the technology that God gave you (or maybe that should be Gore-hehehe) to give them communication channels other than 1-800...

Remember Customer Service is a marketing campaign - don't ever forget that. Ok?