Customer satisfaction

A hotel has been in the news for charging customers £100 if they put up a bad TripAdvisor review. I imagine their business is about to slump. To offer such appalling service is bad enough, but to end up on national news for such a heinous practice is plain stupid.

We've got a small Dyson vacuum cleaner on Erin Mae, on the back of the experience we've had for some some years with a larger one at home. Wear and tear had taken their toll on the larger one, so I looked into how to get it serviced. I found that the easiest way was to get Dyson themselves to do the whole thing. For £79 they either get someone out to you, or (as in our case) arrange for ParcelForce to pick it up from you – providing a suitable box if you don't have the original. They do a complete service, which includes replacing any parts that need it, and get it back to you.

Ours has come back today, and they had replaced a number of parts with a list price of about £45. The dust it picked up in the first few seconds was amazing! However, along with the machine itself we'd sent the stair tool, the flexible bit of which had fractured after several years use, but neither the broken one nor a replacement was in the box today. I rang the customer service line – an 0800 number, note – expecting they'd say it couldn't be included in the deal. But the nice person on the phone said she'd get one out to me right away. That's another £10 part.

Box, carriage, service, parts, extra part, pleasantness, all for £79 – Dyson have a very satisfied customer. I doubt they made much on the deal, but now I'm blogging about it, just like I did about the people who service my car – they're getting free publicity. It can't be all that difficult to get good PR, if you understand what people want.