I recently got a phone call from one of our service providers asking me to participate in a short survey to assess their service quality. This provider handles part of our business infrastructure and so I was more than happy to answer some questions. I won’t name the company for reasons I will explain later.

Some questions dealt with service from the company as a whole, which is typically very good, and with service from our particular customer service rep, which is also typically very good, but not perfect.

A few days after taking the survey, I got an e-mail from our service rep concerned that I had not given him a “very satisfied” in all aspects of his service. I explained to him that while his service is typically very good, he is hard to get hold of by phone. Since this is infrastructure stuff, immediate response to problems is critical, and we don’t always get that, I explained. I then finished up by saying “I’m not unhappy with your service, Joe. In general you do a great job. It’s just the communication thing that needs work. No big deal. The survey taker asked a question and I answered. Don’t sweat it.”

To which Joe replied (his actual words):

 …