What constitutes customer service? Retailers have been trying to recapture this Holy Grail for a very long time. And one would think if you asked the average man or woman on the street who the Kings of Customer Service are, you’d hear names of companies that provide personalized service and attention to their customers. So I was really intrigued to find a top ten list put out by the Temkin Group, who surveyed 6,000 US consumers, all of whom had recent interactions with 143 different large US companies across a dozen industries. The results, reported by USA Today, were quite surprising. For USA Today’s discussion of the results, feel free to click here. Or you can download the report here. Here’s my take.

I was puzzled by the overall make-up of the list. We’re talking about service, which generally implies personal attention. Yet the number 1 company was Amazon.com, a retailer one almost NEVER has any kind of human interaction with. Another three of the top ten were warehouse clubs. If you asked the founders of these three retailers if their core competency was customer service, I’m fairly certain they’d say no — their value proposition is about tonnage products at great prices. I shop at Costco and I shop at Amazon. I would call Costco kind of fun and Amazon easy, but I would never describe them as great customer service experiences. I looked into the criteria for ranking, and there were three: functional, accessible and emotional. Okay, I agree that Amazon is very functional and accessible. But emotional? And the Warehouse Clubs are very functional. But accessible? Emotional? Not so much.

Then there’s Apple, which only made #79 on the list. In an accompanying blog post, the report’s author explains that at least Apple out-performed all other computer makers, but that it still has a long way to go. On this score, I became (and remain) confused. Perhaps the customers were talking about support for their iPhones or iPods. Perhaps this is where my own anecdotal experience gets in the way. I can’t quite tell. For my money, Apple is knocking the ball out of the park.

Apple

I bought my first Mac ever in December — a Macbook Air. This is one beautiful looking machine, so I was really dismayed when I clumsily dropped it on the floor and crushed the corner of the case. It was still functional, but no longer beautiful. I had bought the extended protection program, so I called Apple and asked if that type of damage was covered. They made an appointment for me at my nearby Apple store.

Before I go further, I must say that in general the state of customer service in Miami is pretty abysmal: rude, pushy, and rarely helpful. The Apple Store made a lie of that. I was treated like a queen. My helper, Martin, looked through my file, looked at the Mac and said “We really don’t cover this type of damage. “ I wasn’t so surprised. He told me the cost to repair would be $825. That wasn’t going to happen. I just sat there and he kept typing. Then he said, “Paula, since this is your first Mac, and you just got it a couple of months ago, I’m going to go ahead and get this fixed for you under warranty, just this once. Let me confirm that with my supervisor and I’ll be right back. “ Sure enough, he came back in under two minutes confirming they would repair the computer, warning me that I might lose any data on the hard drive, and printing a receipt for me to take with me. Accessible? Check. Functional? BEYOND functional. Emotional? I think Martin gave me my happiest experience in an otherwise crummy week.

As a fellow analyst said, I didn’t even have to play the “Do you know who I am? ” card. In fact, I played it after the fact, and told Martin I was going to let all 40,000+ of you know just how happy he’d made me. And that made HIM smile, which made me even happier.

The Net

So where does all this net out? No customer service is better than poor customer service, but those of us lucky enough to experience REAL customer service become dedicated for life. And just as I will likely NEVER buy another of a certain brand of PC (stories recounted on earlier dates), it would be very easy for me to buy most anything at an Apple store. The Kings of Customer Service are those who (to re-use Jack Mitchell’s phrase) hug their customers. I feel hugged.