I have had two customer “service” experiences recently which both spawned a determination on my part not to patronize the company again.  One was a great experience, the other was not. Both were instructive and something every business person concerned with customer service could learn from.

I just bought a new gasoline-electric hybrid car, and a trip to Texas to visit relatives was my first opportunity to put some real miles on it.

It performed superbly – 547 miles on a single 11.9-gallon tank of gas!  That’s 46 miles per gallon compared to 21 m.p.g. on the behemoth I used to drive.  Unfortunately, 547 miles from the gas pump in Tucson leads to a point about 100 yards from milepost 242 on Interstate 10 in Texas. That’s about 22 miles shy of where I intended to refill the tank.

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In my zeal to claim fuel economy bragging rights, I ran out of gas.

So I’m an idiot.

Enter the American Automobile Association. A cell phone call to the toll-free number printed on the card in my wallet, less than 30-seconds of music-on-hold and I’m giving the AAA operator all the details.  She promises they’ll have someone out in an hour.  Half an hour later, in true “underpromise-and-overdeliver” style, the AAA contractor’s truck pulls up with enough gas to get me into town.  Out of gratitude, I fill up at the AAA contractor’s service station.  As I pull away from the pump to resume my trip, my cell phone rings and it is AAA checking to see that I had been rescued and whether everything was all right. 

I hope never to have to patronize AAA again in the way I had to on this trip.  Plus I learned that when my new hybrid car chimes and the display says “Add Fuel,” it means “NOW, dummy!”

The other instructive customer service incident happened when I accompanied my wife as she shopped for shoes.  (OK, guys.  Hold it down!)

We have no qualms about shopping at DSW, the shoe discounter and warehouse, but we don’t pay there by credit card. About two years ago, 1.4-million credit card records of DSW customers were compromised in a security breach.

We are at the checkout register. The clerk is one of those types who never makes eye contact, or greets you, or asks you if you found everything you needed. My wife writes a check and hauls out the ID.

While I’m wondering if any checking account numbers were compromised in that breach, DSW’s cash register whirrs and clicks for a while, then it rejects my wife’s check and admonishes “Call for Approval.”

Now the clerk looks at us.  We ask for an explanation. She shrugs and says it happens occasionally, and asks us to pay by credit card.  We say “no,” and explain why. She has never heard of her company’s sins against customer security. We still want to pay by check.

She executes the “slope shoulder, hip thrust, sigh” maneuver and says “I can call, but it’ll take a LONG time.”  

Clearly irritated with us,  she imperils what looks to be a $100 nail job by stabbing angrily at the phone key pad. The swivel-necked attempts to peer over the horizon return.  Look anywhere but at us.

Finally, she gets approval, scribbles something on the face of the check, closes the sale, shoves the shoe boxes into a bag,  rips the cash register tape from the printer, flings it at us, turns her back on us, and walks off without a word.

Okay.  Now we have qualms about shopping for shoes at DSW, whatever the form of payment.

 Tom Collier is president of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona, which serves Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz, Graham, and Greenlee counties in Arizona and all of the state of Sonora in Mexico. The BBB office is a 434 S. Williams Blvd., Suite 102. The telephone number is (520) 888-5353 or 1-800-696-2827 toll-free outside of Tucson. The website is: www.tucson.bbb.org.