A German proverb says: The customer is King. When I told that to my American fellow he was just laughing. He said that compared to an American customer, a German one would not be more than just a poor beggar. He further mentioned that in fact, the real king would be the American customer. I was a customer and I was living in America and assuming that my American fellow was right – and he was always right – I must have been a king. 237 years after the Americans declared independency from the British Empire, they had a king again. And that king was me. Me, together with almost half a billion of other kings. And queens too, of course. ‚Welcome to the United Kingdoms of Customers‘ I thought to myself. I was quite excited being a king now. And my wife was excited too. She was curious to experience the legendary world famous American customer service, its excellence, its friendliness and its 24/7 availability in the view of a queen.

Lets start from the beginning.

My wife – now an American queen – is driving a brand new Car. It’s not her’s but it’s rented by the company she is working for. That’s probably the reason why the car looks shiny and new from the outside but quite seedy from the inside. The car is equipped with every electronic gadget you can imagine, a bunch of airbags and all fancy active and passive safety features that are available on the market nowadays. Nevertheless, the car had a severe safety problem. A safety problem that even couldn’t be resolved by any of all the high-tech equipment aboard. A safety problem that reduced basic driving ability such as steering and braking. The problem was, that one of its radial steel belt, low profile tires was punctured. My wife called the rental car company’s customer service department and asked the friendly guy on the other side of the line what she’s supposed to do now. The guy – his name was Carlos – told her, that she hadn’t to worry about and that he would deal with everything needed to resolve that problem. He was asking her dozens of questions about her and her car and seemed to type all her answers into his computer. When he came to the mileage question and he realized, that the car’s mileage was approaching the 30’000, he offered not just to repair the tire but even to service the car at no cost at all. Before that Carlos came to an end, he gave her the phone number of a car repair station closest to her home, so that she could schedule an appointment at her best convenience. In the meanwhile, he promised to advise already the repair station about her case. Wow! That was amazing. My wife was impressed about that tremendous friendliness and such a perfect customer service. She felt like a queen. Still excited she called the repair station right away.

Seconds later.

The very friendly and polite woman – her name was Serena – on the other side of the line at the car repair station asked her dozens of questions about her and her car and seemed to type all answers into her computer. She did confirm, that Carlos, the guy of the rental car customer service department did already contact her and that she confirmed him to be capable and eligible by the car’s manufacturer customer service department for servicing her car. My wife scheduled an appointment for Sunday morning. Great! They were open for her even on a Sunday morning. A queen is a queen.

Sunday morning.

A very friendly and polite guy – I don’t remember his name anymore – behind the desk welcomed her when she entered the customer section at the car repair station. He didn’t ask her dozens of questions about her and her car, so she felt slightly unset. But then he gave her a form instead to fill out with dozens of questions about her and her car. That made her confident again. He tried to type the answers into his computer. Unfortunately he couldn’t read her handwriting so he had to ask her the same dozens of questions about her and her car that she already filled in the form. And the same questions that she already answered to Carlos and to Serena. But when he came to the mileage question, the same mileage question that she answered already to Carlos and to Serena an that she filled already into the form, then, the whole story took a fatal turn: „30’000 miles, it’s a guarantee service, I apologize, we can’t service your car because they won’t pay us for!“ the guy told her. Oops. What a pitty. Sorry queen, no dollars no kingdom. And who the ..beeeeep.. is: ‚they‘? The queen was not amused at all. She thought that beeing a queen she might have let that guy decapitated right now. But then she imagined that even with his head in the guillotine he would have kept up smiling and asking: *“Did you find everything alright?“. But she might have smiled back and might have asked him: **“Is there anything else I can do for you?“

One hour later.

Still upset, she left the building and called Carlos again. Carlos just apologized in a very friendly and polite way for all her inconvenience and did confirm that the car repair station couldn’t service her car. But wasn’t it himself that gave her the address of that car repair station?  Anyway, he gave her the phone number of another car repair station which she called right away. The very friendly woman on the other side of the line – her name was Susan – picked up the phone at the second ringing and asked my wife dozens of questions about her and her car. She seemed to type all answers into a computer. They scheduled an appointment for one week later.

One week later.

A very friendly and polite guy – I don’t remember his name anymore – behind the desk welcomed my wife when she entered the customer section of the other car repair station. He asked her dozens of questions about her and her car – the same questions as last time, the same questions as every time – and putted all answers into his computer. After having passed the mileage question successfully he came to the tire question. But what happend? My queen was shocked when she heard what he said: ‚I’m sorry, we don’t do tires!‘ What? ‚We don’t do tires, I apologize, but as a special service, we will take apart the whole engine of your car to see, why its oil level is that low. At no cost at all for you.‘ Wow! The queen was soothed down. What an excellent customer service. She just wanted to have fixed her punctured tire and now they service her car and they even take apart the whole engine at no cost at all.

Another week later.

The car was serviced, the engine was taken apart an reassembled again. But they didn’t find anything unusual. The only thing that was still open was that punctured tire. They sent her – what surprise – to the very first car repair station she had been already. It was the same guy behind the desk when she entered the building and he had still his head on his neck and a smile on his face.

And another week later.

The queen got her car back. Hurrahhhh!

Three weeks had past, tons of paperwork had been done, hundreds of questions were asked, at least 20 super friendly and helpful people did theirs best and believe it or not, but at the end the punctured tire was repaired. What an amazing customer service. But my wife was in doubt if she really wanted to stay a queen or if she rather prefered to abdicate. Nevertheless I suppose, that the worlds famous American customer service has much more something of a legend than that it would be legendary. Or might it just be a little anecdote about kings and queens? Whatever. Maybe, Americans should think about getting really independent one day. Independent of the United Kingdoms of Customers.

* O-tone: Part of Safeway’s standard customer service checkout procedure
** O-tone: Part of T-Mobile’s standard customer service call procedure