If you could undo one Invention, what would it be and why?

[tater]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

Hear Hear!
The good ole days of customer service has long been forgotten.

A good customer service story (not automated!).

It's OT, but when we went to San Francisco, I booked Pacific Heights Limousine to send a town-car to pick us up at Oakland. The idea was just to make it super easy, even though the car service was <2X what a cab would be. Figured on the way back, I'd have a feel for things and a cab would be fine (never been to SF before).

Get to Oakland, no one is there to meet us. I call. Guy says that there was a screw up, and the car is 10-12 minutes out. He'll pick us up curbside instead, and at reduced cost. 15 minutes passes. I call to ask what the car looks like just in case I'm at the wrong spot. Tells me black, and the license plate. Nope. Call back 10 minutes later. He says the driver has been there for over 10 minutes and cannot find me. He says he's left the car and is inside downstairs... I say "OK, but I can't see how he passed me at Southwest Airlines without me seeing him." I'm thinking to myself, "I don't SEE a downstairs here, but he knows Oakland Airport better than me." There are a few calls where he has the driver call me. I tell them exactly where I am, at the end of the SW airline terminal, and there is nothing past me, it's the end of the line, etc. Long story short, my plane got in at just before 10am, we were not picked up at 10:45, and something I said on the last phone call made the PHL guy say something that made me realize they might be at the wrong airport. I said, "you're at OAKLAND, right?" Pause. In the screw up they sent the guy rushing to the wrong airport. So he tells me to take a cab. I think he was still talking when I hung up (I was a little POed at this point).

In the cab we got stuck with (driver from middle east, car was running with at least one cylinder dragging, VERY rough, I was sure we were gonna have to call another cab to meet up on the highway, lol) I get a call. It's PHL. He's the good customer service. He told me he'd arranged for the doorman to pay the cab fare, and that our return to the airport was on them. When we left Thursday, the owner met us with the driver to make sure we were taken care of an apologized.

Very well played, I would use them again without hesitation. There are always things that can go wrong, and their proactive stance of making it better without me even asking was exactly the right behavior.

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by tater

In the cab we got stuck with (driver from middle east, car was running with at least one cylinder dragging,

interesting trip

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by tater

Very well played, I would use them again without hesitation. There are always things that can go wrong, and their proactive stance of making it better without me even asking was exactly the right behavior.

Exactly the way to handle that situation. Even since they screwed up, the right handling of those situations will keep you as customer. In fact, bad experiences that were salvaged by good CS will create new customers, as I think some of us would be inclined to use that service now when we go to SF.

[Feuer Frei!]

Without drawing out the OT but...
word of mouth, best form of advertising.
Or the worst.
In this case it's good.

[Penguin]

The worst invention of the past centuries:
The decision to have the "Press Esc to exit fullscreen mode" message hardcoded into Flash and have it popping up in the center of a video anytime you watch something in full screen.
Yes, I got it after having seen it 89235789 times... I have to press esc...
The guy who decided this should be tarred and feathered.

Originally Posted by tater

A good customer service story (not automated!).

[snip ]

Please forward this post to german companies - though I doubt that they would be able to find this funny and strange word "service" in their dictionaries...