How's this for customer service?
I was in a Virgin Records store on Newbury street in early September. I tried out a new kiosk, which had a barcode reader that would scan a CD or DVD that you would hold up. Once the barcode was scanned, the kiosk would play snippets of songs or video from the scanned media, and would provide reviews of the scanned product.
Good in theory, but miserably slow in practice.
So I wrote Sir Richard Branson with my feedback, and a couple of technical directions they might want to look in to resolve the issues.
I received a thin envelope about two weeks after I wrote him--a form letter, saying something like "Thank you for your feedback. Please bear with us while we answer it."
About two weeks later, I received a phone call from the VP of Information Technology for the Virgin Group. He shared some insights into what they were doing to resolve the issues, and thanked me for my feedback. Pretty cool.
How many companies would have followed up my letter with silence? Or a form letter? Hell, how many would have followed up with a phone call from the VP of IT?
It's doing things like listening to its (potential) customers that will continue to drive Virgin's successes.