Customer service

Now and again a company offers such good customer service I feel like dashing them off a complimentary note. That happened this morning with Foxit Software, which made the PDF Editing program I use. There was a task I couldn't do so I snooped around their support page and discovered my version was pretty old. A newer version let me do what I wanted to do. So I wrote them, asking how much an upgrade would cost. They replied, promptly, Nothing, and gave me the URL for a new download. And now I'm in business.

I'm reminded of a very unusual car mechanic I met in New Jersey. We were driving across the country from Oregon to visit my parents. Around the middle of the country, Ruby, our red VW Bug, picked up an oil leak. I didn't want to stop, so instead bought a case of oil and added as needed. The case got us to New Jersey.

My dad recommended a VW mechanic -- two brothers from Russia who worked out of a barn in the country. They were sculptors as well as mechanics, and art surrounded their business. One gave me an estimate to fix the leak, I approved, and that was that. A couple days later I returned to pay the bill and pick up Ruby -- and the bill was a small fraction of the estimate! Ends up it was a minor thing, they didn't even have to remove the engine. I wanted to give the guy a big tip for honesty, and he seemed genuinely baffled by the offer, as if "an honest mechanic" were a commonplace concept. I should have bought a sculpture but they were too large to fit in my bug.

It's nice to start the day with an act of good customer service.