Earlier this month I purchased something from an online company. It was a DVD of the best of Michael Jackson's videos.

I waited with excitement every day for it to show up. Finally, on Saturday, I started to wonder what had gone wrong. Yes, it took me that long to realize that maybe I needed to do something about it.

On Monday, I contacted the company that I bought the item from. I got the automated message that one usually gets saying they'd get back to me within 24-48 hours. I was kind of irked there wasn't a phone number I could call, but most of the time I'm a pretty calm guy, so I figured I would wait.

I got the first real response within 2 hours. It stated that they're actually an intermediary, and that a third party company is really the one who I should contact because they're the ones who were supposed to send out my item.

What could I do? I sent email to the 3rd party company, but included the first company in the email address so they could see what I had to say. I was kind, and just stated the facts. I figured it didn't need any embellishing. I immediately got their automated email also; maybe I do need to get an autoresponder after all.

I got the real email back from them within an hour. They stated their records showed it went out in the mail more than two weeks ago, and apologized for my not receiving it. They gave me a few options for how we could proceed, and I chose having them just send out another one; has to arrive this time, right? I wrote them, and they responded within 10 minutes that they would do just that thing. Within 30 minutes, I got email from the first company saying they would also help to keep track of my purchase, as they and the 3rd party company had communicated.

I have to say that was pretty good customer service. Two online companies took care of my concern on the same day, when i was expecting it might take me another week to finally move forward. Hopefully I'll have my package by Thursday or Friday, since the company said it was sending it out in 2-day mail. It wasn't an unpleasant experience, and a mistake has been made, yet the way they've handled it is encouraging me to give them another try.

Sometimes, that's all it takes for a business to keep its customers when things don't go quite right. For me this time around, it certainly worked wonders.