This needs an addendum: AWS support is top notch, as long as your AWS fees are already on the hefty side. Which makes sense.
But also, it can be frustrating to deal with them when it comes to anything that's not a clear incident on their part, or requires optimization over troubleshooting, e.g. a few years ago, we had a few instances underperforming because of higher than expected I/O loads and low associated EBS bandwidth, and they never gave us a solution for it.
I don't know about Braintree, but I did recently have a frontline customer support email to a consumer product company answered (incorrectly) by an LLM. I know that it was an LLM because it said that it was in a footer below the response.
It was quite annoying and I had to email the company a second time because the LLM response checked some "did we respond" box on their system.
I assume you're looking for bigger companies. I've had plenty of great experiences with local companies where the person is likely the owner. And I assume you're looking for consistency too - almost every company I've had more than just a couple of interactions with has had at least one person that did their job well from a customer service standpoint.
Here are the most consistent ones though from my experience:
Chick-fil-A, especially when you go inside. And it's not just one - it's most of the ones I've visited. Every now and then you'll get an employee working the drive through that's not exactly pleasant, but still way above the average for fast food.
Publix, a regional southeastern grocery store. Every cashier is very nice and pleasant, the stores are clean and well lit, the baggers are always there to help you load up.
Amazon, the best customer service is not ever needing customer service. Any time I've had a problem it has been because I misread or misunderstood the product description, and there has never been a problem sending anything back.
Traders Joe. Everyone is genuinely nice, and look like they want to be there doing what they are doing. I know it’s not true but they make it look like it is.
I haven't spoken to them in a couple years because I don't work for a company that uses Solidworks anymore, but Dassault Systemes had fantastic customer support (maybe it was one of their VARs, I can't remember).
I became somewhat well-known among their tech support agents for having some of the most difficult and creative problems with Solidworks. Usually some kind of "I'm trying to bend sheet metal in a way that Solidworks doesn't natively support".
They were on-the-ball about RFCs too. I submitted no less than 3 RFCs and they were all accepted in a more timely manner than I hoped for. And they weren't just little nonsense stuff, some of them dipped into nasty mathematical theory; sheet metal is apparently really difficult to calculate in certain situations.
Southwest Airlines. On more than one occasion, they showed human vs corporate levels of empathy and help, and I patronize them with mid 5 figures of annual spend in return.
It's funny how different and polarizing individual experiences can be. My MIL loves SWA for much the same reasons, but they're one of the worst airlines in mine.
Amazon.com. They've always provided excellent customer support when I've had to deal with tracking / replacing / returning items.
Costco - again, fantastic service.
A long time ago I applied to Lucasfilm for a job. I still have fond memories of how warm and kind the HR rep was while telling me that I was too junior for the role.
Every restaurant I've dined at in Los Angeles - amazing service. They treat me like a celebrity (just in case I really am).
I bought something off a third party seller on Amazon. They couldn't deliver and cancelled the order.
6 months later, I noticed I never got my money back. I jump on a support chat, and I got refunded, no questions asked.
My interaction with Amazon support has always been stellar, and refunded immediately whenever there is a problem with no fuss. Once I got a £500 monitor stolen by the driver, so the procedure was a little more complicated, but basically I had to sign a document saying I did not steal it nor lie about it, and got my money back in less than 10 days.
It feels like they always want to err on the side of the customer and that is refreshing to see.
Alaska Airlines support has been amazing, unmatched lately. Immediately speaking with a person, immediately response and actions without the “I hear you” bs and “thank yous” and “we’re so happy to waste your times”.
But it’s serviced by BofA. The absolutely worst banking service for anything I’ve ever used. The WORST KYC process ever experienced. I’m disabled. They made me physically come in to a location very far way, apparently they’re now all ATMS with a few brick stores. No drive through. The bank manager goes around to people standing in line and asks identifying and personal banking questions out in the open for everyone the hear and learn.
T-Mobile is solid all around (>>> AT&T or shudder Verizon), but US Consumer Cellular has one of the best customer service operations I've ever dealt with.
Not in my ecperience, although my many interactions with them were 10 years ago, so they might have gotten better. It still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Believe it or not, Comcast Business was great back in the day. One day my cat puked right on the modem/router, killed it. They had a guy out that night with a replacement.
Today, it's terrible. 2-3 day wait. I cancelled them as soon as a new provider came to town.
Surprisingly, GE. Apparently they’re the only big appliance company that maintains a service division in-house. It’s easy to book a repair, the engineer arrives on time, and they were able to successfully repair my 20-year old fridge that would have entailed a complete kitchen remodel to replace.
Charles Schwab. Not only do their (at least checking) products have great benefits (like no ATM fees and free international transactions), but every time I've called they've been extremely helpful.
I once had my debit card canceled due to fraud while traveling internationally, and they shipped a replacement via both UPS and Fedex to ensure a replacement got to me as quickly as possible.
I have no doubt they've lost money on me as a customer in my lifetime, but I have nothing but amazing things to say about them and I suspect they'll make it up later in life when I have more assets to work with.
Came here to say Schwab as well. Caught me very pleasantly by surprise. It's easy to get a human on the phone, they are always very knowledgeable and get me answers fast. I've dealt with them on everything from bounced checks to wire transfers to self directed 401k questions, not one sub par experience.
Really... I just had the worst experience just trying to limit my sharing since my employer signed me up to a retirement account with them. No automatic prompt, had to be forwarded around and finally to a human that had to verify several things and information for me just to limit my sharing. The first call I got stuck with the phone robot and it wouldn't accept any input. The second call was 18 minutes to just get that done.
Start.ca, a regional Internet service provider in Ontario. Someone always picked up the phone, and it was always a knowledgeable in-house CSR, not some outsourced operation where the workers are afraid to lose their jobs if they don't follow the script.
Super nice in person, too. Worth a stop to try a bunch of instruments if you're driving through Indiana on I-90 and need a break. There's a cafeteria, too.
1800 Contacts has always been really great. Got an updated prescription through their digital exam, was approved an hour later, and had my contacts recieved in the mail the next day.
Anytime I've had issues they were quickly resolved, and their chat actually connects you to a human almost instantly.
I have recently (within the last 18 months) started riding a motorcycle. Motorcycle gear is hard to find at retail, which I think is pretty common with niche activities at this point. Two Internet sites (in the US at least) dominate that sector, and turns out they're both owned by the same firm: CycleGear and RevZilla.
The former DOES have retail stores, but the latter does not. The sites are now similar, but the feel is better at RevZilla, so that's MOSTLY where I search and buy. I fully expected the customer service to suck either way, though, given that they have effectively no competition.
tl;dr? I was wrong.
Last year, as it got cooler, I realized I needed a heavier moto jacket. I bought one, but the fit was wrong, and the fit was wrong in a way that made it clear that just going down a size wasn't going to solve the problem. Merlin jackets are just not shaped like Ubermonkey, turns out. I called RZ to arrange a return, and was ON THE PHONE WITH A REAL HUMAN IN LIKE 6 MINUTES.
And this real human set me up with a return label immediately, and then asked if he could help me figure out a replacement. He knew the product lines they carried, and understood the styles I wanted, and suggested a brand I didn't know but immediately clicked with. They credited me immediately for the return (before I got off the phone) so at no point was I technically paying them for two jackets, even.
I was stunned. Customer service is not dead.
(I looked it up: RevZilla was conceived in 2007 as an online provider; CycleGear has always been brick & mortar. The RZ founder and a PE group formed a holding company in 201 to own & operate both businesses separately. I suspect the fact that an RZ founder is still fundamentally in charge is why the RZ service is so good.)
Notion and Vercel, back in the day. You'd talk to some engineer at Notion helpig them file a bug and reproduce it, and a week later it'd be fixed. You'd get Guillermo Rausch looking through your project on Github to find what's causing Vercel to crash.
Nowadays... you submit a bug to Notion, the support person is snarky and tells you "it's supposed to work that way" and a year later the bug is still there.
I'e been very impressed with my DNS provider, Loopia. For years they've been consistently quick to turn around my occasional requests for help with stuff not possible in the web UI or that requires involvement with the national registrar (myself mixing up personal and corporate identities purchasing domains).
They act as a broker for home insurance. They consistently will find the lowest rates, easy to get a phone agent, and have people waiting to walk you through the process.
I'm a paid account holder, and I've had 2 or 3 email support requests over perhaps 10 years. Each time a person actually read my request, thought about it, and gave a useful or helpful answer. eg in one case, their employee tracked down why search wasn't working the way I thought it should, and giving me an actual fix to the issue (I had an imported inbox in a subfolder, so saying in:Inbox in search wasn't working bec there were two folders named Inbox).
100%! It's an employee-owned company that is ethical and responsive. I've been with them for years and their service is outstanding both technically and in terms of support. Vastly preferable to the UI shambles that is Gmail and every "free" alternative.
https://krakatoaunderwear.com/ The customer support and focus on customer experience is worth the couple of extra dollars. Also the product feels very well made.
True Classics also has really great customer support in my opinion.
149 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] threadBut also, it can be frustrating to deal with them when it comes to anything that's not a clear incident on their part, or requires optimization over troubleshooting, e.g. a few years ago, we had a few instances underperforming because of higher than expected I/O loads and low associated EBS bandwidth, and they never gave us a solution for it.
The most recent interaction with Braintree support was very weird though. I honestly started to suspect I'm talking to an LLM.
It was quite annoying and I had to email the company a second time because the LLM response checked some "did we respond" box on their system.
Here are the most consistent ones though from my experience:
Chick-fil-A, especially when you go inside. And it's not just one - it's most of the ones I've visited. Every now and then you'll get an employee working the drive through that's not exactly pleasant, but still way above the average for fast food.
Publix, a regional southeastern grocery store. Every cashier is very nice and pleasant, the stores are clean and well lit, the baggers are always there to help you load up.
Amazon, the best customer service is not ever needing customer service. Any time I've had a problem it has been because I misread or misunderstood the product description, and there has never been a problem sending anything back.
https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100
(i love publix, no other affiliation)
Monta for Swiss watches.
Isovalent (Cilium CNI) for software.
I became somewhat well-known among their tech support agents for having some of the most difficult and creative problems with Solidworks. Usually some kind of "I'm trying to bend sheet metal in a way that Solidworks doesn't natively support".
They were on-the-ball about RFCs too. I submitted no less than 3 RFCs and they were all accepted in a more timely manner than I hoped for. And they weren't just little nonsense stuff, some of them dipped into nasty mathematical theory; sheet metal is apparently really difficult to calculate in certain situations.
Costco - again, fantastic service.
A long time ago I applied to Lucasfilm for a job. I still have fond memories of how warm and kind the HR rep was while telling me that I was too junior for the role.
Every restaurant I've dined at in Los Angeles - amazing service. They treat me like a celebrity (just in case I really am).
You’re soof’d if not
6 months later, I noticed I never got my money back. I jump on a support chat, and I got refunded, no questions asked.
My interaction with Amazon support has always been stellar, and refunded immediately whenever there is a problem with no fuss. Once I got a £500 monitor stolen by the driver, so the procedure was a little more complicated, but basically I had to sign a document saying I did not steal it nor lie about it, and got my money back in less than 10 days.
It feels like they always want to err on the side of the customer and that is refreshing to see.
Alaska Airlines support has been amazing, unmatched lately. Immediately speaking with a person, immediately response and actions without the “I hear you” bs and “thank yous” and “we’re so happy to waste your times”.
But it’s serviced by BofA. The absolutely worst banking service for anything I’ve ever used. The WORST KYC process ever experienced. I’m disabled. They made me physically come in to a location very far way, apparently they’re now all ATMS with a few brick stores. No drive through. The bank manager goes around to people standing in line and asks identifying and personal banking questions out in the open for everyone the hear and learn.
Cap.One and Amex were amazing though.
Today, it's terrible. 2-3 day wait. I cancelled them as soon as a new provider came to town.
I once had my debit card canceled due to fraud while traveling internationally, and they shipped a replacement via both UPS and Fedex to ensure a replacement got to me as quickly as possible.
I have no doubt they've lost money on me as a customer in my lifetime, but I have nothing but amazing things to say about them and I suspect they'll make it up later in life when I have more assets to work with.
They have, literally, the best customer service experience I've ever encountered as a customer.
Anytime I've had issues they were quickly resolved, and their chat actually connects you to a human almost instantly.
The former DOES have retail stores, but the latter does not. The sites are now similar, but the feel is better at RevZilla, so that's MOSTLY where I search and buy. I fully expected the customer service to suck either way, though, given that they have effectively no competition.
tl;dr? I was wrong.
Last year, as it got cooler, I realized I needed a heavier moto jacket. I bought one, but the fit was wrong, and the fit was wrong in a way that made it clear that just going down a size wasn't going to solve the problem. Merlin jackets are just not shaped like Ubermonkey, turns out. I called RZ to arrange a return, and was ON THE PHONE WITH A REAL HUMAN IN LIKE 6 MINUTES.
And this real human set me up with a return label immediately, and then asked if he could help me figure out a replacement. He knew the product lines they carried, and understood the styles I wanted, and suggested a brand I didn't know but immediately clicked with. They credited me immediately for the return (before I got off the phone) so at no point was I technically paying them for two jackets, even.
I was stunned. Customer service is not dead.
(I looked it up: RevZilla was conceived in 2007 as an online provider; CycleGear has always been brick & mortar. The RZ founder and a PE group formed a holding company in 201 to own & operate both businesses separately. I suspect the fact that an RZ founder is still fundamentally in charge is why the RZ service is so good.)
Also, RevZilla's media group, Common Tread, is one of the last great motorcycle journalism and video/podcast production outfits left.
Nowadays... you submit a bug to Notion, the support person is snarky and tells you "it's supposed to work that way" and a year later the bug is still there.
They act as a broker for home insurance. They consistently will find the lowest rates, easy to get a phone agent, and have people waiting to walk you through the process.
I'm a paid account holder, and I've had 2 or 3 email support requests over perhaps 10 years. Each time a person actually read my request, thought about it, and gave a useful or helpful answer. eg in one case, their employee tracked down why search wasn't working the way I thought it should, and giving me an actual fix to the issue (I had an imported inbox in a subfolder, so saying in:Inbox in search wasn't working bec there were two folders named Inbox).
A+
True Classics also has really great customer support in my opinion.