A happy story about good service

I seem to spent half my waking hours these days on hold to awful faceless corporations with terrible customer service. But rather then complain about them (PlusNet, Good Energy, Welsh Water), I want to mention a company that gave really good service.

Four and a half years ago, I bought this T&G pepper grinder from Cooking Marvellous, via Amazon:

It’s really good. Grinds efficiently, and the little grey wheel you see at the bottom lets you adjust how coarse or fine the grind is.

But a week ago, as I was grinding pepper into a soup, it literally fell apart in my hands: the bottom third with the grinding mechanism came away from the top two thirds that hold the peppercorns.

Now the grinder has a lifetime guarantee, but it only covers the ceramic grinding mechanism. But I contacted the seller anyway:

Order ID 202-0313852-2529964:
1 of T&G CrushGrind Capstan Pepper Mill, Acrylic, 140 mm [ASIN: B0000E5SKN]

Hello. I bought this pepper grinder four years ago, and I really like it. But to my surprise, as I was grinding last night, it literally came apart in my hands — the rotating top part snapping just above the cuff where it meets the non-rotating bottom part. I’m inclined to think a pepper grinder (that has not been abused!) should last longer than four years; if you agree, I wonder whether you’d consider sending a replacement?

Well, why not? What’s to lose?

To my delight, they wrote back the same day:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your email. I can confirm that we have been in contact with T & G our supplier. They have asked for this order to be returned to them to the following address:

T & G Woodware Ltd
Attn: Fiona Gissing
Old Mill Road
Portishead
Bristol
BS20 7BX

They will make sure the mill is restored and sent back to you free of charge. Please include in the parcel your delivery address and telephone number so they can send this back to you.

So I did:

And on Saturday, the package arrived:

I opened it …

I’m really pleased about this — not just because I saved the minor cost of a new pepper grinder, but because it’s gone some way to restoring my faith in companies. In the face of the monumental incompetence and obstructiveness of, say, PlusNet, it does my heart good that three companies all did well here:

• Amazon’s contact-the-seller facility Just Works;
• Cooking Marvellous forwarded my message to the manufacturer swiftly; and most importantly
• T&G replaced the grinder even though there was absolutely no requirement for them to do so.

Isn’t that nice?

So: I recommend Cooking Marvellous and especially T&G Woodware, whose product is good and whose service is better. And a feel a little bit better about our crazy world.