I am a very happy user of Grocery Gateway. That's a website where I do my grocery shopping online and they deliver it to my home. The prices are competitive, it's an efficient use of my time and it's just such a treat for me to have someone else schlep all those heavy groceries into my kitchen!

The process, once you choose what groceries you'd like, is to reserve a delivery time, often 4 or 5 days ahead of time. Then that time is guaranteed for your home delivery. The time frame window is usually 2 hours, never more than 2 ½ hours, even in busy times of day.

I had placed my monthly order for delivery on February 1 earlier this year. When a big snowstorm was predicted, I was rubbing my hands together congratulating myself on my wisdom of using this great service. Then, in the evening of the day before my delivery was scheduled, I received an email from Grocery Gateway saying that "Due to the weather conditions we will be experiencing, the safety of our delivery personnel and the general public is important to us, and our drivers are instructed to exercise caution when driving in hazardous conditions. As a result, deliveries may be late during the course of the day. We thank you for your patience and understanding".

Rarely do I see such a proactive stance from any company! To let your customers know ahead of time that there may be an alteration to their order is common sense, but rarely common practice. To do it by citing public safety and employee safety raises the bar on a company's community image and political savvy.

Too many companies bury their heads in the sand the second there's a challenge with a customer order. They choose to deliver late, improperly, with no explanation. When you see how incredibly easy it is to include your customer in the process as Grocery Gateway did, it makes me shake my head at why all companies don't do this.

By comparison, I've just read, from a contact of mine, a story of poor attitude and lack of caring from Best Buy. My contact made a large purchase from Best Buy, over $5000 of office equipment, and was very pleased with his purchase and his experience with Best Buy until his printer broke down.

Best Buy repaired his printer 3 times and then replaced it. And then the trouble really started. When Best Buy replaced his printer, they didn't inform him that his warranty was null and void. And now, you guessed it, he needs repairs on this replacement printer and has just learned the bad news.

I think the most offensive part of this dispute is that Best Buy is showing no concern for their customer. They are simply stating that the replacement printer voided any warranty and that's that. I do not see any service in that stance.

If we have a customer who's unhappy, we need to fix it. And we need to compensate our customer for taking the time to complain. A complaining customer is a great asset to any company, because they're giving us a chance to keep them as a happy customer.

Most unhappy customers don't complain – they just go away. But they talk and they talk and they talk. An unhappy customer will tell over 50 people if you have an argument! And if one of those people happens to write a customer service column that's published online……..well, that number can have unlimited growth.

The point of course is that there's no room for any company of any size to deliver poor service, especially to deliver that service with a poor attitude. No matter what the actual details of this case may be, the onus, I believe, was on Best Buy to alert their customer about changes in his warranty at the time of the replacement. To omit that alert and to follow that with an apathetic attitude speaks poorly for that company.

So the moral of these 2 stories is easy - be a tiger about great service, not an ostrich!

Like all great customer service, it's that simple.