Why Can't They All Be Like This?

Regular readers will know I hate advertising in pretty much all forms. If you know that, you also know that I won't mention a product unless I've tried it and thought it was great. If you're new here let me also point out that I'm not getting paid to say any of this.

In other words, I'm not a paid advertiser, I'm just a fan.

I really have to hand it to the folks at Mr.Beer.

You'll remember Mr. Beer from a few weeks back when I experimented with home brewing. I finished the last bottle of my home brew a few days ago and I have to say the system and end product are absolutely outstanding.

I mean, a monkey could make their own Beer with the Mr. Beer system. It's really that easy. As I mentioned in my last posts on this subject my Dad used to brew his own beer, and not only was it messy and complicated, you ended up with something that could be just about classified as 'drinkable' if you were lucky.

The Mr. Beer system took about half an hour, dirtied a single pot...and not counting actual brewing time and bottling, that was about it.

The result was also amazing. I'd put my homebrew up against any beer you can buy in the stores with confidence.

Anyway, I'm writing about this again today, because not only do Mr. Beer make a great product, they also have outstanding customer service.

You see, I went to their website to order a refill kit (This time I'm experimenting with Caramel Apple Cider. Hard cider with brown sugar and pumpkin spice...it sounded good and at 7.4%ABV, a hell of a lot more potent that the beer I made).

However, I made a mistake while ordering. I went through and ordered as a 'guest shopper' rather than creating an account. I figured it would be quicker.

It was only after my order went through that I realised that, without an account, I couldn't log in and check the progress off my order or get a tracking number. This is a big deal for me because delivery companies have a hell of a time finding my house.

So I sent an email to their customer support and asked if they could email me a tracking number. Going from my usual experience, I was hoping to get an email back sometimes before UPS tried to deliver, failed and returned to sender.

In less than fifteen minutes I got a reply.

The email told me that they'd set up an account for me, gave me a password so I could log in and track my order...and had even gone so far as to email me the tracking number so I didn't even have to bother logging in.

Now that's service.

Usually I have a really hard time getting things straightened out when the mistake is the seller's, not mine. For them to go to the time and effort to fix a problem that came about because I didn't bother reading the instructions properly is just fantastic.

Most companies I've dealt with over the internet tend to treat their customers like a necessary evil. What's the big deal in losing one customer when there are a million more?

Mr. Beer are incredibly rare in that you actually feel valued as a customer. They do things the right way by making it as easy as possible for you to do business with them.

I would say that a LOT of companies could learn a lot from Mr. Beer. Thanks to their great product and even more because of their outstanding customer service, they've earned a life-long and loyal customer.

That's more than I can say for most online companies I've dealt with.