Amazon and 1-800 CONTACTS Do Customer Service Right

I've had my share of bad customer service experiences in the past, so it's refreshing to see it done right. Here are two recent examples...

Amazon

I ordered a heart rate monitor (to...you know...monitor my heart rate while I exercise) but when I got it the display wasn't working. Probably a dead battery, but I wasn't about to pay for one to find out, so I initiated a customer return / exchange on their site. The experience for this was seamless -- I logged into my Amazon account and indicated I had a return. It let me choose the order from my recent order history then gave me a few options for why I was doing the return -- I selected "exchange" and it gave me the option of printing a prepaid USPS label, which I did, then I shoved the monitor back in the box, slapped the label on, and put the box out for the mailman to pick up. At the same time, Amazon created a new order for the same item and shipped it out -- OVERNIGHT. This is despite my picking Free Super Saver Shipping (i.e. it'll get there when it gets there) when I first bought the item. I have the new monitor now (which works fine), and the defective one is probably still at my local post office being processed. Thanks again Amazon!!

1-800 CONTACTS

I usually get my contacts from my eye doctor, but decided to give these guys a try since the price was significantly cheaper. When filling out the order for a few boxes, I accidentally put in the wrong perspiration on the form (classic brain fart -- I forgot the "-" at the front which effectively put my prescription at the opposite end of the spectrum -- doh!). I didn't realize my mistake till I opened one of the boxes and was about to rip open the contact itself. So I sheepishly called them up and explained the situation (hoping they would at least take back the unopened boxes then do a new order). To my surprise, they offered to ship out the corrected order (again overnight) for free, and they included a return label for my bad order and paid for that shipping as well -- they also took back the box I opened. The absolute kicker though was this note the CSR attached to a $5 gift certificate she included in the corrected order...

"Dear Bernie -- I'm so sorry about the problem with your order. Feel free to use this gift certificate on your next order. I appreciate your business and look forward to hearing from you again".

Crazy -- they give me $5 for my own mistake -- I only wish all my mistakes paid back like that ;)

2 Comments  |  Personal  | 
Posted 1/9/08 @ 9:48 AM by Bernie Dolan

10 Reasons Why You Should Attend Flex Camp Boston

Here's 10 reasons why I think you should register now for Flex Camp Boston:

  1. Two words: Baked Beans. I've said too much.
  2. Interested in how to link Flex and ColdFusion? With folks like Tom Jordahl and Matt Woodward on the agenda, you're sure to get an earful.
  3. The coolest giveaways! Ever. Keep watching Brian's blog for more info coming soon.
  4. It's cheap. Crazy cheap. How can you go wrong for only $10?!?
  5. The awesome list of speakers.
  6. This is NOT a watered down beginner event -- these are intermediate to advanced topics. Check the agenda for more info.
  7. You'll get to meet me in person. Seriously. Whoa.
  8. Boston is a great place to visit -- it's on a Friday, so why not make a weekend out of it? Maybe do some holiday shopping while you're here. It might be too cold for the Swan Boats or the Duck Tours though...
  9. Easy to get to. Bentley College is just off of Rt. 95 / 128 in Waltham, and there will be plenty of free parking.
  10. Members of the 2007 World Champion Boston Red Sox will be there to personally hand out signed copies of MLB officially licensed FlexBuilder.

Okay, that last one is just a blatant lie. But you never know -- David Ortiz might be a closet Flex Developer...Right?

0 Comments  |  ColdFusion, Flex  | 
Posted 11/6/07 @ 8:00 AM by Bernie Dolan

Officially Running ColdFusion 8

I finally got around to installing CF8 on the VPS I share with Brian at Vivio. I'm happy to report the installation was about as uneventful as I could have hoped for -- absolutely no problems.

Vivio uses CentOS for their VPS accounts, so I ran the CF8 Linux installer and just followed the prompts. At one point, it asked me to shut down the CF7 search service. No problem. Just opened another telnet session and...

cd /opt/coldfusionmx7/bin
./cfmxsearch stop

After letting the installation complete, I started CF8. On first start it updated the Apache config to point at the new install (recycling Apache in the process). Next, I logged into the CF administrator and a few clicks later all the CF7 settings had been migrated over and everything was running fine. Better than fine actually -- noticeably faster.

Last step was to remove ColdFusion 7 services from the init scripts. I did this using the chkconfig utility...

chkconfig --del cfmx7search
chkconfig --del coldfusionmx7

Done! Ahhhh. I guess those pesky Solaris boxes at work need some love now too... ;)

0 Comments  |  ColdFusion  | 
Posted 9/26/07 @ 8:50 PM by Bernie Dolan

Robust Exception Information Misconception?

Say THAT five times fast. :) If you tend to bundle detailed exception information for an email or log when your ColdFusion application throws an error, you MAY be under the impression that you need to turn on the "Enable Robust Exception Information" setting in the ColdFusion administrator in order to access things like the 'Java stack trace', 'SQL statement used', etc...

        

It just isn't so. Even with this setting turned off, all the info you need is available in cfcatch.

So take Ray's recent advice -- and disable that setting if you have it enabled in production -- you don't want it, you don't need it.

0 Comments  |  ColdFusion  | 
Posted 7/11/07 @ 11:24 AM by Bernie Dolan