I often bellyache about how customer service has mostly gone the way of the dodo over the past several decades, with megacorps becoming increasingly nonchalant about losing individual customers because of their snide or uniformed representatives. They have, what, five million other customers? Who cares if I stop paying Comcast half my paycheck–they’re still getting half of everyone else’s paycheck.

But every so often something nice happens. Case in point: this exchange I had with Netflix a few days ago. What I expected was a response after two or three days saying that there would be a delay while they waited for the missing DVDs to surface, instead I got a response within a couple of hours, from a real person, and it looked like this:

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 6:57:40 PM
To: customerservice@netflix.com
Subject: Shipping and Receiving Movies: Other

Subject: wrong address
We just moved and I forgot to update my address (I just fixed that). The
three
movies currently listed as being out for me were in fact sent to my old
address. We do have our mail forwarded, but I’m not sure that they are
the
“class” of mail that would get forwarded. I want to make sure they don’t
get
lost.

Thanks.

Their response:

Hello Lyza,

Thank you for contacting Netflix.com customer support!

Thank you for letting us know. It is confirmed that the 3 movies shipped on 1/3 went to your old address at [ my old street address ]

Since you have updated your address to the new one on file, I have ordered replacements to ship out. The original titles have been marked “lost” and will be removed from this status once they are received by our warehouse.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Thanks,
Girlie
Netflix Customer Service