Finally...some good customer service for a change

I often use this blog to tell customer service horror stories but today, I'm thrilled to share a good news story about some wonderful customer service I recieved.

But first, some background. This week, I attended a great event on how to make the most of Twitter, organized by Yummy Mummy Club and featuring Scott Stratten, who is amazing by the way. One of Scott's many great tips was to use and register on Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages. Twellow makes it easy to find people on Twitter by grouping users into many categories (e.g. entertainment, politics, media). Check it out.

Back at my office, I went to www.twellow.com and found the site easy to navigate but I noticed there was no category for "etiquette". So, I hit the Contact Us link on Twellow and e-mailed a request to have "etiquette" added. I'm always skeptical of those links because, sadly, they often disappear into a black hole or it takes weeks for someone to respond.

Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from Chad at Twellow Support only ten minutes later. He informed me that he had added the category and provided the URL where I could link to it. Pleasantly surprised, I e-mailed back to thank him and asked for some advice on how to add myself to a category. Almost instantly, he returned my message, provided the instructions and told me had gone ahead and added etiquette to my search profile. Wow! I almost never receive customer service that is this quick, pleasant and informative.

Twellow is now number one in my customer service hall of fame!

Cell phone manners gone wild

Yesterday morning I posted that this week is National Etiquette Week and suggested some ways that we can all be more polite and improve the lives of others in the process. By the end of the day, I had witnessed a manners faux pas of the first order - someone who had an entire cell phone conversation in the middle of someone else's presentation.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a great event organized by the yummy mummy club. The focus of the event was how to use Twitter and it featured a great guest speaker, Scott Stratten from unmarketing. I don't think I have ever heard anyone articulate the power of Twitter in such an engaging and humorous way and if you haven't already heard Scott speak, make a point of it.

At the beginning of his talk, Scott suggested that people leave their cell phones on during his presentation, and, if they have an annoying ring tone, to let it ring through so we can all enjoy it. Most of us took this suggestion in the tongue in cheek nature in which it was intended and turned our ringers to silent. He also encouraged us to tweet about the event while it was happening. Although I don't normally advocate using handheld devices at all during a presentation, I have come to accept that social media events can be an exception.

About halfway through the presentation, we heard our first annoying ringtone but, rather than letting it ring or turning it off, the owner of the cell phone picked it up, said "hello" and proceeded to have a rather loud conversation at his table. While those close to him strained to hear Scott's words and everyone else in the packed room squirmed in their seats, this poor guy continued to chat as if he was the only person in the room. Finally, he looked around, realized that he had become the unwitting focus of attention and got off the call.

In his defense, he claimed to have misunderstood Scott's initial instructions and thought that he had advocated an "anything goes" approach to etiquette. Do you think that, after the glares he received from everyone else in the room, he finally understood?

Nope. About 20 minutes later, he got another call and proceeded to do exactly the same thing.

So there you have it. On the first day of National Etiquette Week, an etiquette first, not once but twice.