How to provide good customer service

How to provide good customer service

As long time readers will know, I do like to let people know when I have received good customer service as I am very happy to shout about companies that I feel deserve your business. Previous posts include my experiences with Lexmark UK, Amazon UK and Apple.

Today two of those companies make a comeback with more positive experiences, as well as a new service.

1. TransferWise
This is a new service I have been tested out in order to get Euros converted into Pounds. Usually if you transfer money directly between two international accounts in two different currencies, there will be a fee for sending, an exchange rate fee and a fee for receiving.

It is even worse if you are depositing a Euro cheque into a UK bank account, as the banks then want a set fee for the service, an exchange rate fee plus postage for the cheque.

Using Transferwise you can minimise these fees, I believe my fee was 0.5% total plus a card payment fee. In total I managed to make a saving of £140 by using the service when transferring €2000 to pounds. Side note: I paid by debit card so I do find a card payment fee to be a bit cheeky as there are no fees with these cards for retailers unlike credit cards!

Overall though you can't sniff at a saving of £140. Sign up using my referral link here and get it fee-free (and I'll get a small referral credit too).

2. Apple
Apple provided me with two examples of great customer service recently. First of all after my iPhone 5s simply stopped charging all of a sudden (this is two years since purchase with no applecare), they replaced the phone with a refurbished model (looks like new) under the sales of goods act. They sent me packaging, I send it in, they couldn't fix it so they shipped me a refurbished model back. This had the added advantage of also giving me a working home button which is a bonus as that was broken too! This was a long process on the website though and Apple does seem to hide this as much as possible. It is possible though!

Secondly, I purchased an App on the Mac App Store and it made out that it did something, but it didn't. I emailed Apple and I had a reply in just 33 minutes and was immediately refunded! I even had a followup email to check everything had gone well a few days later.

3. Amazon
Amazon once again makes its way back into my section filled with positive customer service experiences. I received a product which was faulty. I went on the website, was able to instantly confirm I'd get a refund, and print out a shipping return label. Then it was simply a case of walking to my corner shop which is a Collect+ store and leaving it. This avoids going all the way to the post office. Later that same day I had an email from Amazon confirming that my refund was being processed and the money was in my account the same day. Magnificent!