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Trouble with her home Internet service led Andover resident Jennifer White to vent on Twitter.
"We were frustrated because we had been having issues for a while," she said.
Enter Will Scroggin, or @Cox_Will as he's known to Twitter friends who turn to him for help with Cox Communications products and services.
Scroggin, a Cox employee, saw White's tweet and sent a manager to her house who discovered a routing problem.
After the problem was fixed, White said, "He followed up with me a couple of times."
In one way, it was a case of going above and beyond, White said, but, "I think that's just how he treats everybody, which is unusual anymore. It's obvious he cares about what he does."
She said, "I don't even call Cox anymore. If I have problems, I just call Will. I say, 'Will, help me!' And he helps."
Most businesses have standout employees who make them look good. Most businesses also have less-devoted employees who hurt their reputations.
So how do some companies achieve consistently great customer service?
"You need to look at your company as an entire organization and how it is viewing service," said Lise D'Andrea, president and CEO of Maryland-based Customer Service Experts. "Customer service doesn't only happen in that department."
She points to companies such as Ritz-Carlton and Southwest Airlines as examples.
"Those companies are led with service as the focal point of the entire organization," she said.
D'Andrea said it's important to find out what customers think, but it is equally crucial to examine what employees feel, since "they're the ones who create the ultimate experience."
It's what D'Andrea calls "serving the internal customer."
Jennifer Good, a consultant who owns Maryland-based Workforce Echoes, agrees that employees have to come first.
"You don't get happy customers from unhappy employees," she said.
She said each business has an ecosystem.
"Certain things grow, and certain other things will not grow," Good said. "Often management isn't even aware of what they're doing that creates ... the work environment that produces poor customer service."
Hiring correctly is key.
"That's your first line of defense," Good said.
That's also where many managers make mistakes.
"It's often not a specific skill set you're looking for. It's a specific personality," Good said.
For instance, a manager might value one potential employee's knowledge of a particular computer system over another's outgoing personality, but Good said that may not be the best approach.
"You can teach them most anything if you get that right personality," she said.
With superstar employees, she said, "You might not know what it is, but they've got it."
Training can help, Good said, but it's often the first thing to be cut from a budget or busy schedule.
When there is a problem, she said, "It's so often resolved by writing another policy or procedure to make sure that never happens again.
"Your rule book over the years grows and grows and grows. Pretty soon, nobody knows what's in that rule book."
Good said it makes more sense to build a culture that fosters creativity, integrity and high productivity.
"That works a lot better," she said, and it leads to better customer service.
"Building your organization on values definitely, I think, is one of the keys."
Good and consultant Jeff Sullivan, who led Southwest Airlines' customer service effort for years, recently published "Inside Out: Creating Work Environments That Lead To Exceptional Customer Service."
Sullivan said Southwest was one of the first companies with a profit-sharing plan, and it made a difference since everyone — whether it was the person flying the plane or the person cleaning it — had a stake.
"When you have skin in the game, you tend to act like the owner," Sullivan said. "You're pretty much going to do a little bit more than you would have to do to keep your job."
Companies have to be careful with incentives, though, he said.
One example from his book is of a package delivery company that rewarded drivers for how much they delivered in an hour.
"People ... sacrificed accuracy for speed," Sullivan said. "Customer complaints went through the roof."
There are different labels to describe customer service, but they're mostly all the same ideas.
Wichita State University marketing professor Cindy Claycomb said some researchers have compiled what they call the five dimensions of customer service.
They include:
* Tangibles
This could be a company's physical surroundings or how employees dress.
* Reliability
"That's how you have the ability to perform what you say you're going to do," Claycomb said.
* Responsiveness
"That's just responding to customers ... promptly," she said.
* Assurance
This is employees' knowledge and behavior.
"When they speak to customers, customers trust them and have confidence in them," Claycomb said.
* Empathy
"The customers have that feeling that they are cared about," she said.
Training for certain situations can help, but Claycomb also echoes the need for having a culture that empowers employees.
"Then as an employee you can do something," she said. "You're in charge of something."
Like Cox's Scroggin.
"I'm empowered to do a lot more, and there's a lot more trust instilled," Scroggin said.
Because he's not limited, he said, he has the ability to provide great customer service and "make things right."
