It’s CUSTOMER SERVICE, stupid!

I just wrote my friendly Consumerist about my latest experience at USAA, where I have, among other things, my car insurance.

I freaking love that company. If you qualify for their services (and check with them, because more people qualify than seem to up front), I can’t recommend them enough.

There are plenty of reasons; they’re a generally well-run company. But what does it for me, and the reason I don’t think I’ll ever leave, even if I find a cheaper product elsewhere? CUSTOMER SERVICE. Theirs is freaking spectacular. For instance, yesterday, they:

* Picked up the phone. I think the longest I’ve ever been on hold with them is about 2 minutes, and their VIR system is super-easy to bypass.

* Listened to my complaint. No buts, no insinuations that I was in the wrong or lying, nothing. Just listening.

* Called back. They said they’d call me back in a few minutes, and they did. I think Working Assets and Wide Open West are the only other companies that have ever called back when they said they would; it shouldn’t be so rare, but it is.

* Took immediate action. I had a complaint about being lied to and treated rudely by the manager of an Enterprise Rental Car that USAA had referred me to, and they responded by contacting their Enterprise rep and having two complaints filed with corporate — one on behalf of me, and one on behalf of USAA. And they did this within 15 minutes, mind you.

* Resolved my problem. Besides being rude, Enterprise wasn’t billing USAA correctly for a rental that was covered by my insurance. Rather than make me wait while Enterprise got their crap together, USAA simply reimbursed me directly for the full amount, no questions asked.

* Went farther. Seeing that I had another claim open, USAA’s rep immediately offered me information on how to use any other rental car agency I’d like, since she would “understand if [I] didn’t want to go to Enterprise again”. Now that’s thinking ahead — plus, many other companies would have been judgmental about my having two claims open (someone hit my parked car, if you were curious), and she didn’t even bat an eye nor insinuate a thing. Just took the opportunity to offer extra help.

I love USAA, as I love any company that actually bothers to invest in customer service. For all the complaining companies (especially American companies) do about customer loyalty, and how they have to continually slash prices (by firing American workers, using cheap Chinese parts, and outsourcing customer service to the cheapest third-world nation that has phones) in order to keep customers, the answer really is that simple: Take good care of your customers, actually (not “appear to”) give a shit about giving them decent service, and guess what? Even if they’re cash-strapped like me, they’ll laugh off offers by anyone else to cut their insurance rates, because they wouldn’t dream of giving you up.