Pick-A-Day

June 2013
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Two positive customer service experiences in one day: Foto Meyer and the… uh… US IRS!

Today, after a long day of work, I had one mission to achieve: getting my camera cleaned. While in the Shetlands I’d noticed that there was a speck of dust in the viewfinder, but that said speck of dust was not showing up in my photographs.

Thank goodness – so I put off dealing with it. Snooker in Berlin recommend that I speak to the staff at Foto Meyer and after a couple weeks of procrastinating, I went there today after work. The longest part was waiting – ten to fifteen minutes – as the shop was incredibly busy with five or six people working behind the counter.

Once my turn came up, I explained the problem – thirty seconds later the dust was vanquished.

While I did not buy anything on this trip, the next time I want to buy anything photographic, I’ll be back.

My second round of great customer service came this evening – in my mail today I received a bill from the US Internal Revenue Service (tax authorities) for a not insubstantial sum of money. Naturally I was surprised because I thought that I’d already paid – but then, when reviewing my paperwork I realized that I had credited the funds to the 2013 tax year not the 2012 tax year.

After about 25 minutes of hold time, I spoke with Ms. Williams, who listened to my story, found my payment and (hopefully) fixed the problem (I’ll find out in 3-4 weeks). She was, I must say, one of the nicest IRS employees that I’ve ever spoken with. She made a terrific effort at speaking clearly. Usually the IRS employees I speak with speak as fast as they can and do not bother to enunciate every work, leaving me a bit confused as to what has just happened.

Naturally it probably helps that I admitted up front that I made a mistake when making my payment by crediting it to 2013 instead of 2012, but still, she was patient, polite and upon learning my social security number and verifying that I was who I claimed to be, quick to track down what had happened and re-credit my payment.

So three cheers each for Foto Meyer and the US IRS!

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