One of the most painful customer service experiences I've had lately came my way thanks to the Dell online ordering system. But one of the most pleasant customer service experiences I've had lately came may way thanks to one of Dell's customer service representatives.

The thing is, I should have never had to talk to the representative in the first place. I did, though, because Dell's online ordering system managed to lose two orders. It didn't matter that I had Purchase ID numbers; the orders did not exist. I'm not exactly sure how you design an order processing system that can spit out order numbers while simultaneously losing the actual orders, but it's obviously doable.

To Dell's credit, the luck of the draw put me in contact with a friendly, understanding and helpful customer service rep. Andrea went out of her way to make what had started out as a painful experience as simple and pleasant as possible. But while I was extremely impressed by the service Andrea provided I'm still disappointed with the overall experience with what should have been a routine online transaction.

So consider this as a cautionary tale. The moral of the story: No amount of extraordinary customer service will fully salvage your reputation if your customer's initial experience does not meet their expectations.

UPDATE: Looks like it's not just me...

Email one comes in saying, your order is verified, life is good, let's rock -n- roll.

Email two comes in time stamped AFTER email one, 10 minutes or so later saying, just want to let you know we're thinking about this and we'll send you another email shortly verifying/confirming, etc, etc.

Hmmm.. This don't look good for moose and squirrel....