Customer Service The Way It Should Be

As one who consistently grumbles when customer service is not what I'm expecting, let me give a big lump of credit where it is due today.

It is due to StubHub, the online ticket service that allows me to buy tickets to the Virginia-Southern Mississippi or Wake Forest-Maryland college football games for $9 each (which I recently did), then if there's a screw-up in delivery--even if the fault is mine--makes good on the purchase.

I bought tickets to both those games in August and StubHub shipped them out quickly to the address I had used in the past, an address where I no longer live. Let's be very clear here: StubHub simply did what I asked. The error was mine and mine alone. I failed to update the address, even though it was on the screen in front of me.

I told the operator I was not in the habit of blaming others for my mistake and if we couldn't find the tickets, I'd eat the cost. She said I wouldn't, either. StubHub, she showed me, values its customers and wants us to return. She said if we couldn't find the tickets "we'll do everything we can to get substitutes for you."

That, boys and girls, is customer service. StubHub could lose a few bucks here, but it will retain a customer who buys quite a few tickets because it is a class operation.