Customer Service is back in style...

I'm a believer.... in eBay.

I'm sitting on my couch in near complete disbelief. I saw a trend starting early in the 1990's (some will say earlier or later) where customer service became scarce and unimportant and the focus was on becoming bigger, better, more efficient, less caring, less individual and always -- more profitable. It was a concerning trend because people were not the focus, money, tech and growth were. It made for a great bubble and made for some quick millionaires. It was also extremely short-sighted and led immediately afterward to the natural byproduct of greed and hubris -- a fall! We've all seen the effects of that.

In any case, this is a long-winded way to say that I'm becoming a believer in customer service coming back in vogue, and some very big companies leading the charge. Take, for instance, eBay. I had written a scatching blog entry detailing an issue I had with eBay, the Post Office and a seller who didn't quite follow his own rules. I took issue mostly with eBay, because they had a program in place to provide buyer protection when customers were short-changed or didn't get what they ordered. It's a wise move on their part to have a program like that, particularly because there are some less than reputable folks selling on eBay. They also do have programs in place to eliminate that kind of chaff -- and I've always felt like doing business on eBay was pretty safe. So I was blown away when I contacted their buyer protection team and got shut down completely. Then I received an e-mail talking about how valuable this program was, which included the CEO's name. It was somewhat like throwing kerosene on a fire -- I was still pretty irritated with eBay. I hadn't shopped on their site, told everyone about my experience, and posted here and on all my other social media outlets that eBay wasn't taking care of the situation. So I Googled John Donahoe and found his e-mail address and forwarded him the message that had his name and eBay's buyer protection commitment on it -- expecting that in the best case scenario, I'd get some campy form response telling me how valuable my feedback was (why do people do that? Just proves it's not!).

eBay didn't take the easy way out. I got a phone call this morning from a great gentleman on their team who had received the e-mail directly from John Donahoe with a request to look into it. Apparently the boss takes customer service and the concerns of members quite seriously... we talked for a while about the case, the details of which are in my old blog post here, if you're curious. In the end, eBay is taking care of the loss by crediting me with eBay credit (a perfect solution, actually -- it keeps my business with them). But more importantly, it demonstrates that they are interested in taking care of me -- an individual. I appreciate that more than I can say -- and so I am recanting my blast of eBay -- and I'm telling you that this company deserves a good look -- they're doing something very, very right. :-)

During my recent case, I'm about 95% certain the fault was with the USPS -- that's an organization that never has cared about customer service at its highest levels (and I still hold out that this is true; I challenge anyone to prove otherwise!). eBay, though, rocks.

Thanks for restoring my faith!

Joe