If one of your customers has a problem, how long does it take you to respond? I’ve had a number of opportunities to interact with companies here in Europe and the usual experience is as follows:

1. Send an email to the company
2. Get an automated email saying that you’ll be contacted within the next 48 hours
3. Wait 2 days
4. Get a customer service representative emailing back
5. Reply saying that I’ve solved the problem in the meantime or switched to a different supplier.

I had a great experience the other day dealing with a company in China called DVBSeller, an online store where I purchased my new Dreambox. I emailed them with a problem on my shipment and received an email reply from one of their customer service reps in under 8 minutes! An email response time measured in minutes is something that European counterparts can only fantasise about, but the experience has redefined my expectation of Customer Service. We can really learn from these guys.