Customer service is not completely dead

By MARY JANE HOLT
Contributintg Writer

As you know, there's not much I don't think my hubby can do. He is the ultimate yard man and repair person. He can build just about anything I can persuade him that I need. He can even take a jet engine apart and put it back together. He truly is amazing.

Except I bet you knew there was about to be an "except," didn't you?

I'm beginning to think he is actually afraid of computers. Never thought there would be a day when I would think, much less audibly say or actually write the words, that he is afraid of anything mechanical.

When it comes to computers, he does not even like to be in the same room with one. If I want him to read something on the screen before me, I know I have to print it out. Yep, waste another tree. I think he figures if it's not on paper then it was not meant for him to read it.

Except at work, of course he assures me reads all correspondence at work. Hates it but does it. Accepts the fact that it is necessary in his workplace. But there is no convincing him it's necessary in his homeplace.

So after two years of continuous problems with a computer that had to have been put together and programmed by somebody with a Monday morning hangover or worse, I gave up on a Sunday evening about three weeks ago and drove up to Office Depot in Fayetteville about an hour before they closed.

I guessed that the manager must have spotted me when I walked through the door and that he had come to recognize the look that must have been on my face.

I had absolutely had it with the piece of junk I had struggled with for 24 months. It actually is the first bad, as in truly evil, computer I have ever owned. To date I have outgrown several and have come to know a smooth running sweetie when I sit down at one.

So the manager himself, Jeff Key, listens to my woes and my needs. In a matter of minutes, he custom-built an order for me (on paper). The price was awesome. He assured me it was exactly what I needed.

I waited 18 days for delivery. The old computer practically bit the dust last week, two days before the new one arrived.

The new system came. It is perfect and I got it at a perfect price. I am elated.

I left there thinking of how close I had come to giving up on Office Depot about two years ago. I had repeatedly gone in that same store and had repeatedly been met with somewhere between poor and no service for several months (a first ever for that chain). I since have shopped around at a Staples or Office Max here and there, even bought a few things from Wal-Mart. And I was pleased. But I missed Office Depot and I am glad to be back with them.

Isn't it awesome when you occasionally discover true service in today's workplace? Real, honest to goodness customer service. Folks who listen to what you say, seek to understand your needs, and strive to meet those needs in a timely fashion.

Jeff Key was right - this system is exactly what I needed. Just like I knew that last piece of equipment was a lemon from the get-go, I know this baby will serve me well.

Ordinarily I would not write a column actually promoting an establishment, the way I am apparently endorsing the Fayetteville Office Depot. But just in case there's anybody out there who is as close to blowing up a computer system as I have been over the past few weeks, I implore you to go see Jeff first. Tell him exactly what you need. He can make it happen.

How foolish we are to think one person cannot make a difference. With one order, one genuine act of customer service, this store manager has erased my former frustrations with Office Depot and brought me back into the fold.

As I write this, I am reminded of a sales associate at the Rich's store in Columbus who almost single-handedly made me a loyal Rich's shopper again last year. There again, frustrations at an other store with other associates had driven me away.

There just are no words to describe how valuable client-centered service is in the workplace, but because I am so thankful to be sitting at the keyboard of a quality piece of equipment this morning I just had to try!