In recent times, I’ve had two positive experiences with proactive customer support from companies using the web, and last night I ran across another.  The quick upshot of all of this is:  I will come back to you and buy stuff from you if you are good to me — even if your product costs a few bucks extra.

My experiences:

First, I posted a message to the Chicago Blackhawks message boards praising the gift that they gave me as a season ticket holder.  I did express that I was a little bit bummed that my mailman had damaged it by cramming it into my tiny mailbox rather than leave it out where larger pieces of mail are generally left, but made it very clear that something like that is obviously not the fault of the Blackhawks.

A day later, I received a phone call from my season ticket representative who said that someone had “forwarded my email” (okay, perhaps her terminology was a bit off…) and that she wanted to meet me at the next Blackhawks home game and give me a fresh new copy of the book.

Sure enough, at the December 26th game against the flyers, a friendly gentleman showed up at my seats between periods and handed me a new, undamaged copy.  Sure, it’s a $15 book retail that probably cost them $2 or $3 to replace for me, but it was the gesture that mattered.  I didn’t write a letter to them to complain, and what I did write was mostly praise.  Still, they took the time to make me happy as a paying customer, and that means something.

My second experience came from, of all places, Comcast.  While I should state unequivically that I have had a mostly hate-filled relationship with Comcast for the better part of the last decade or so, I have to give them credit for one thing:  They’ve started messing with Twitter a bit, and because of it, I actually got a hold of someone who truly helped me, instead of sending me through their normal horrific bureaucratic runaround.

I can’t let Comcast off the hook entirely here.  They’ve hardly made up for the countless days of work I’ve taken off, and their latest advertisements that portray satellite dishes as being susceptible to bad weather while Comcast SuperAwesomeTastic Cable is not are laughable, seeing as every time it gets extremely wet, cold, or hot, my Comcast Cable turns into a gigantic bag of fail.

That being said, I’m impressed that they’re at least taking strides toward improving, and for that I must tip my hat.

So tonight, I ran into something I found to be even more impressive.  I’m considering building a Home Theater PC and was reading reviews of a specific motherboard on a personal favorite store of mine, <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.newegg.com”>NewEgg</a>.  Turns out, some manufacturers actually browse NewEgg’s reviews looking for people who have negative experiences with their product.

In this case, ASUS, a manufacturer of computer motherboards, actually replies to reviews and automatically creates a support ticket for the user.

This is a fantastic display of customer service, in my opinion.  It has pretty much sealed the deal on what brand of motherboard will go into the next computer I build.  Not only are they looking to see what issues might exist with their products, but instead of just saying “please call us”, they’re even creating a support ticket so that they’re all set to help the customer they’re talking to.

I’d be very curious to hear about other examples of customer service like this.  With a still-tanking economy, it seems to me that gestures like this are one of the best ways to fight for what few spending dollars people have to give.