I cannot say enough good about Pottery Barn's customer service.

I've ordered a lot from them since buying my condo two years ago and not every piece was perfect (manufacturing issues). They were quick and kind about taking things back and issuing refunds or credit for merchandise.

About a year after I bought a sectional from them, I started having problems with the brackets snapping. I was so worried they wouldn't help me. But! The rep asked me to send pictures of the problems - as soon as he saw the pictures, he was able to issue a pick-up order. A month later, I had new pieces!

So...while not everything went smoothly with all of my furniture (and, really, I did have so many more problems than I thought I would), I would do it all over again to have such excellence in customer service from Pottery Barn!

(I sound like a commercial!)

Home Depot
(golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated... and if going in circles, always ask for management!)

Land's End.

Boffi -- but we've never had a problem yet, just exceptionally great service.

Ligne Roset. We bought a Togo set (4 pieces), and I was sure that the dye lots and fabrics were not the same -- my husband refused to go complain at first; finally, we found the tags underneath and discovered there had been a mistake -- they weren't the same. We took it to Ligne Roset 9 months after we took delivery, and they investigated (an error was made when our order was put together to send out), and they are making 2 new pieces to match.

I think it has a lot to do with the individual customer and the employee that they are dealing with at the time. My own personal experience w/Pottery Barn was awful.

I've had great experiences with The Company Store too.

The Container Store was endlessly patient and helpful when we ran into problems installing our Elfa bookcases. If we hadn't finished trying a suggested solution when one customer rep was going off duty, he'd hand the problem over to the next one. No one ever gave us bad advice or dropped the ball, and they stayed with us (via phone) until the project was completed.

I've had great success with CB2. They are really helpful, and the employees seem very knowledgeable about the products they offer. I've had incredibly poor service from West Elm, part of Pottery Barn.

T-Mobile has had some of the best customer service from any huge National company that I have ever dealt with! Of course, I had a Sprint Customer Service rep hang up on me...that was the day I left Sprint.

T mobile, Zappos, and Container Store.

I've had good experiences with LL Bean and Lands' End. When you call LL Bean, someone always picks up the phone, no annoying phone menus...and is always pleasant. I had to return some items and there was no problem, regardless of how long I've had the item. Lands' End is the same...very pleasant to deal with and works well with you. No problems at all.

Lands' End (Yes, this is the way they spell it)
Their call center is in Wisconsin - and you couldn't have nicer or more helpful people to talk to.

LL Bean is right up there with them - Both companies gladly take returns without any problems.

The Williams Sonoma companies (which include Pottery Barn and West Elm) also have exceptionally nice people in their callcenters.

Amazingly enough, Overstock.com has a good callcenter - I bought a watch from them and getting a refund when UPS failed to deliver to a safe location (They left it outside the building!) was no problem.

Citicards have really good callcenters too even tho they're outsourced overseas.

Worst call centers experiences ever?
Royal Caribbean/Celebrity, United Airlines and FedEx. Getting issues resolved with them is a nightmare, and if they promise to return a phone call, you're getting a brush-off.

Oh, man! I've had consistently horrible experiences with Home Depot! They routinely lost our orders, don't return phone calls, and are totally unreponsive. Once, my car "key" died in the parking lot after I'd been shopping at Home Depot. I went back in and asked if they could use a small screwdriver to open the back so I could walk to Best Buy and replace the battery and was told they didn't have any screwdrivers and couldn't help me. (!!) I gently opened a box of screwdrivers for sale (w/o doing any damage), used a screwdriver, and put it back. (Spoke with the manager after that one.) On another occasion, I asked if the employee helping me thought I could handle the project or would it just be better to hire someone and he told me (no joke!), "No, you can't do this, you are a woman." ... Now, I *heart* Lowe's.

Good customer service: Lowe's, directtv, zappos, AT&T, jcrew, and Nordstrom.

(Sorry for the rant!)

I agree with LLBean, ordering online was fantastic
I do not agree with Nordstrom, the clerks just looked at me as if I was an alien

I know not everyone loves DWR but I've gotten really great customer service from them. My bed wasn't delivered when it should have been & presto, free shipping. The other stuff has always been delivered in a timely & courteous fashion. Haven't had to return anything so I can't vouch for anything like that. Amazon.com has also been quite good. Unfortunately I cannot recommend the online site www.shelving.com (aka www.theshelvingstore.com and shelving, inc.) Ordered a wire chrome shelf & while it came quickly (& was good quality) it wasn't exactly what I was ordered & my bill was higher than it should have been. They have been very slow in reacting to my complaints.

I've had consistently GREAT experiences time and again with Design Public, Schoolhouse Electric, and Design Within Reach.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier for me to remember the (relatively) few horrible customer service experiences I've had than it is to draw up the really good ones -- these are just the three companies I thought of right away that have gone above and beyond to make me a happy customer, both when there's a problem AND when everything goes smoothly.

Best: Zappos, Pottery Barn, Room & Board, Wonk

Worst: Smith & Noble, Home Depot, Continental Airlines

I find independent shops much easier to deal with -- I will often pay a small premium to have that level of personalized service (and I just like to support small, local businesses if I can).

Pet Peeve #1: entering your account/order number into the automated system and then having to repeat it when you FINALLY get someone on the phone.
Pet Peeve #2: explaining your issue to someone in detail, getting transferred to someone else, and explaining it again.

Forgot another really good one: FLOR.

Like the person a few comments up, I've also had a GREAT experience with Ligne Roset, who replaced a couch that had a spring collapse after I'd owned it for ten months. I complained, and they not only replaced it for free with no fuss whatsoever, they paid for shipping on the new couch to have it delivered to my door and installed in my living room AND paid for removal and disposal of the old, defective couch. I was deeply impressed, and will definitely be buying from them again.

Williams Sonoma gets a mention for their customer service when they replaced a Shun knife I bought whose tip broke after three years of use. The warranty covers reasonable use for the life of the product, and they replaced it promptly with no questions and no fuss.

It's not really AT's thing, but I will add that you can't beat Publix's customer service in the grocery industry (and someone apparently teaches their bag boys how to group frozen stuff with other frozen stuff and fragile stuff with other fragile stuff. I wish other grocery chains would be so thoughtful).

On the 'bad-company' list comes Ikea -- I know that less customer service is how they keep their costs down. That doesn't excuse the fact that it took 45 minutes on the phone with their call center to make sure an item was in stock at a store before I drove two hours to buy it. There's no excuse for that. Also Time Warner cable, with whom it took THREE HOURS of getting transferred for someone to tell me that the person I needed to talk to wouldn't be available until 8 am the next day. Bad, bad companies!

Oh, yeah, re: Ikea. I learned the hard way that "in stock" does not necessarily mean it is "available for purchase" (the manager's words, not mine). In stock apparently just means it's in the store. My item was in stock, but up in the rafters and they won't get an item down for you until the store is closed and the manager won't do anything to remedy this, such as offer to deliver it, no matter how far you've driven.

FreshDirect in NYC has a terrific customer service!!

LL Bean (they're so helpful and nice that I'll order by phone instead of online!)
lightingdirect.com
foamorder.com

I've ordered from these companies pretty regularly over the years (especially LL Bean) and customer service has been great every time. My second-most recent light fixture from lightingdirect was very well-packaged, but it arrived with a broken piece. I contacted them and had the new piece four days later, shipped directly from the manufacturer.

Not crazy about Five Rivers Lighting. Invoice was not correct, communication was confusing, and the wattage was not as described on the website (but I've only ordered once).

Mixed review for westelm - I had a box arrive that had broken open and was taped back shut. There was dirt on the bolster but they didn't offer to replace it. They did send out a new sofa leg to replace the one that was defective, though, and the call center representative was very nice.

Well, I've had terrible experience from United airlines: they cancelled my flight, then cancelled my rescheduled flight, then when I called customer service the unintelligible overseas agent hung up on me.
And terrible service from Home Depot: my boyfriend - "where are the elecrical cables?" Home Depot employee - "I dont know man, I just work here."

But I would love to take this opportunity to sing the praises of Mythic Paint. They are a new NO VOC paint company who opened a shop in my hometown in CT. We just made over the kitchen in my apartment, but because it is now an open layout, it required a new paint job in the kitchen/dining room/ living room / hallway. So, we made the long drive up to CT from NYC just to get this paint. I brought in a color sample from Behr hoping to find something similar. I found out that not only do they color-match, but they already have a formula database for most other major paint brands' colors. They found the formula for my sample and mixed up four gallons. When I brought it home, it was a little too dark for what I wanted. So, I brought the paint the paint back and explained the situation. The guy from the store called the Mythic headquarters and they created a new formula for him to mix on the spot. He mixed four NEW gallons for me for no additional cost. Well, I brought it home and IT'S PERFECT!!! So beautiful, covers well, fantastic customer service AND NO SMELL! Best Paint Company Ever.

I don't know if this really relates to AT, but I often place work-related orders from a New York company called Manhattan Wardrobe Supply (I design and build costumes for theatre and dance). Usually about half an hour after placing the order online, I'll receive an e-mail containing a tracking number, and usually I receive the shipment from UPS the next morning. I live in Philly, so the package doesn't have to travel far, but still, it's amazing how fast they get it out. And everything comes very lovingly, carefully packaged. Also, I've never order something and found out later that it was out of stock. My few communications with their customer service department have been lovely, and also correctly-spelled, with proper grammar.