Amazing Customer Service from Select Comfort

I’m so accustomed to bad customer service that when I receive great service, it’s a shock and I’m slow to respond.  We bought a Select Comfort bed in May, 2001.  For the first time since we set up housekeeping in 1991, we were both happy with the firmness of our mattress at the same time.  We enjoyed six blissful years of restful sleep… and given that the bed was warranted for twenty years, were hoping for many more.  Until (cue the Dramatic Prairie Dog) my husband’s side of the bed stopped retaining air.  We weren’t sure whether the problem was the mattress, the pump, or a connection.  We’re quite broke, so we were concerned about what it would cost to get this problem resolved.  Let’s face it, you can slog along with a lumpy Serta mattress indefinitely if you really have to, but when you sleep on an air mattress system that doesn’t hold the air, you got nothin’.  We called customer service, hoping for the best.

The first shock – within a minute, I was speaking to an actual human being. The second shock – he spoke easily comprehensible English. The third shock – he was very friendly and courteous.  A trifecta of fabulous customer service.

But wait!  There’s more!

While I sat there, completely perplexed by this turn of events, he quickly located my original order.  We discussed various troubleshooting procedures which we had already done.  He concluded that the pump was the problem, and promptly sent a new one out.  Free of charge.

I’ll wait while you absorb that astounding fact.  …  Okay, welcome back.

We got the pump, exactly as promised.  And as it turns out, we were wrong.  The problem wasn’t the pump, or else there was more than one problem.  We called back – hesitantly, this time.  Was it a fluke?  Had we used up our entire Niceness Allotment from Select Comfort Customer Service?  Could lightning possibly strike the same place twice?

Why, yes.  It could.  And now they’re sending out a new mattress.  (The air bag part, to be specific.)  No charge.  My very tired husband (and very stubborn - he refuses to switch sides of the bed so he can get a good night’s sleep at least one night this week) is very grateful.  And so am I.

And here’s a little frosting for this cake – it’s not just the telephone customer support that’s so good.  I registered on the website while I was looking up the phone number yesterday.  We’ve moved several times since we got the mattress, and evidently I was entering the wrong address, so they couldn’t match me up with my orders.  The system automatically punted me into the email support queue, and I received the correct information today via a very courteous email.

It’s going to take a while for me to get over the shock of all this.  In fact, I think I’ll go lie down.