Every so often I run into a situation where the customer service is so good, I just have to write about it. So here’s today’s story:

I started getting interested in the Apple iPhone and getting tired of my Motorola Q right around the same time.  Everything I read or heard about the iPhone said it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and, if I really wanted to be cool, I should own one.  The big catch was that I would need to switch to AT&T in order to use the iPhone.

Sigh.

I liked Verizon Wireless just fine and I sure didn’t want to end my contract early and get dinged with the early termination fee.  So I waited it out.  Probably a good thing since the iPhone moved from the original to the 3G version while I was waiting.  My Verizon Wireless contract ended and I toodled on down to the Apple Store in Annapolis Mall to pick up my new iPhone.  Woooo! Hooo!

How Many Minutes Should I Get?

If you hadn’t know it before, I’ll tell you now.  Realtors are notoriously cheap frugal.  I didn’t want to spend a boatload of money month-to-month on minutes so I took the cheapest most frugal plan AT&T had to offer. Heck, they even offer rollover minutes so I though I was set.

As if….

I went about my merry business as if nothing was different and yakking it up on the phone with my clients and friends and, lo and behold, I started going over my minutes.  Forget the rollover stuff.  There was nothing to rollover and plus I owed AT&T more money. I was not being a happy camper.   I decided I wanted to up my minutes so I went on the AT&T website to check out the different plans.  That was easy enough but there was another little wrinkle.  Since I work with RE/MAX and AT&T is a RE/MAX Technology Partner, I was entitled to a small discount.  I looked all around and couldn’t find anything.  The website is great for phones and plans, not so great if you want to do much else.

So I Called Customer Service (cue up the big, scary music)…..

I was prepared to wait an hour and talk to someone I could barely understand and I knew would be reading from a book.  Much to my delighted surprise I was able to navigate through the “press 1 for this” and “press 2 for that” pretty quickly and waited about 15 seconds before someone that sounded friendly and knowledgeable came on the phone.

We talked about my minutes, about my plan, about the RE/MAX discount.  It was all very pleasant and all very efficient. She really did lots of stuff I never considered a mammoth company like AT&T would do.  She implemented my new plan and e-mailed me an adjusted bill.  She e-mailed me a website that had the RE/MAX discount, waited while I clicked through the various pages and input the information I needed to in order to qualify.

She held my hand through the entire thing.  I could just feel the love.  The whole thing from beginning to end, including a smallish discussion about my plan took maybe 15 minutes.

I know there are lots of people that have had less than optimal experiences.  I’m here to tell you that my recent adventure with AT&T Customer Service, at least for me, was a delight.

Oh!  I love my iPhone, too.