customer service first

Ian Landsman • November 8, 2004

" I promptly did as required. The next day, I received a response that a replacement jigsaw had been sent via an express courier service. They even gave me the tracking number!

A little intrigued as to how much it would cost to courier the package from Britain to Malaysia, I logged on to the courier website. The answer: ?53 (RM371)! That was almost 10 times the price of the jigsaw. "
- Sterling customer service from abroad

Is your help desk and customer service team so good that people write newspaper articles about them? Would stories like this happen if this manufacturer had brushed them off or asked for 6 types of proof? How much was it worth to them that this article was written?