Service to Create Customers for Life

I could list several companies that I try to avoid, either because of a bad experience that could have easily been avoided, corporate policies that result in poor customer experience, or generally unsatisfactory products. I do not plan to list any of those here. Instead, I am going to talk about two companies that helped me out tonight, or at least their employees did. The extra mile they went was such a great experience that I consider myself a "customer for life" or at least for a long time.

I'll give a little background first. My car was in the shop today, getting the air conditioner replaced, something I was not particularly happy about in the first place. But, I got the car back this evening and it was, in fact, cool (a necessity in Texas summer).

So I was running an errand this evening to Goody Goody Liquor store, and when I came out, my car wouldn't start. After a call home, I went in to see if anyone could help me jump it. One of the employees offered to help and hooked his truck up to see if we could jumpstart it. He ran his truck for quite a while, we tried several things, but in the end could not get it to start, until another employee lent us some thicker gauge jumper cables and we finally got it to run. He also had offered to loan me a battery wrench to help get the battery out if I had needed it, and he was content to loan it on good faith that I would bring it back. I don't know about you, but I am not sure where else I can buy some craft beer and get that kind of assistance.

From there, with a newly jumped car, I went over to AutoZone, where I proceeded to get help with a new battery, and one of their employees helped change my battery for me while having a pleasant conversation with us. He was helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly, and I left quickly with a new battery.

 I came home and gave both a shout out on Twitter, because honestly, companies need to know when they have great employees. Most of the motivation for Yelp or Google reviews always seems to be a desire to ward others off from a bad experience, and sharing positive experiences hold equally important weight, especially in the world of crowdsourcing everything from the internet. I'm preempting today's blog post with this note for the same reason. Sharing good reviews is important.

If not for the good Samaritans at these stores, I might still be struggling to get home or have left my car in a parking lot overnight. I appreciate their assistance, and I'll certainly patronize those businesses again in the hopes they continue to employ such great people.

What businesses have you had a good experience with? Feel free to share or click this link to tweet at me and let me know.

Image credit: Kaboompics via Pixabay