Customer Service

Share experiences on customer service, good or bad. I start this because of varied experience with customer services of different companies, big and small.

LA Times
My most recent experience was with the LA Times customer service department. At 8.30 a.m. I reported a missing paper and requested same date replacement. I was promised delivery in 30-45 minutes. No paper.
I called six times. Customer service person #3 immediately reacted to my remark that I might cancel subscription. "Do you want to cancel now?" she asked. So, instead of trying to assist with the delivery problem she focused on cancellation.The fourth time I asked for a supervisor and was disconnected. The sixth time at 4.05 p.m. I was promised delivery by 5 p.m. All EMPTY promises. The customer service people seemed to be well trained in answering phones, repeatedly asking for name, address, phone but were not able to satisfactorily complete the service asked for. Instead of trying to solve a problem they just provide standard replies which mostly are not helpful. End result : No replacement of paper received in spite of all the promises.
Excellent Customer Service.

Hewlett Packard
I had a very good experience with Hewlett Packard when reporting a printer problem.
The follow-up was thorough and completed very satisfactorily. Customer service person showed good understanding of the problem and steps to be taken to resolve it.

Dell.
Customer service was not very helpful in resolving a software problem for a newly bought computer. Did not seem to have a good understanding of the problem and kept me on hold several times for apparent internal consultations. Why not direct me to the right person? Lots of time wasted due to incompetent handling.