Customer Service Contrast, Part II

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that customer service is always bad here in Chile and that it's always good in the U.S. I've had bad experiences in the U.S. and good experiences here in Chile. It just happens to be that yesterday it was Chile=horrible and U.S.=excellent.

So remember yesterday when Veronica Soto was a total biznatch to me?

Well, I got home after that whole ordeal and had an email from my loan agency. I was a bit confused about something, so I decided to call them right then to clear it up. I talked to a nice lady named Vicki at NelNet and she helped me clear up my question. I was so amazed by how helpful she was, and how nicely she explained everything. She even made a loan joke!

So, I decided to tell her.

"Thank you so much, Vicki. It's so nice to talk to someone friendly."

She seemed a bit taken aback. "Well, thanks! But I'm just doing my job, Abigail," she replied.

"Well, you've helped me a lot today and I just wanted to say thank you."

"Aren't you sweet," she said, "I really appreciate that. In fact, I'm going to send you an email survey about your customer service experience. Would you mind filling it out?"

So I of course filled it out and gave Vicki her well-deserved kudos.

Then, because of said loan issue, I had to transfer around some money in my US account. My bank, which is actually a credit union that only exists in Vermont (I think it has three branches), has an AMAZING website. They have this function, which I think is pure genius, where during business hours, you can chat with a customer service representative online. It's secure, because you have to be signed into your account to do so, and they ask for like 4000 passwords to access the account (which I appreciate).

So I chatted with Karen and she transferred some money for me and it was just peachy.

What a sigh of relief after having to deal with Veronica Soto. I still haven't heard back from her, by the way. I guess I'll have to call in a little bit.