Customer Service

Today's home-economics class is as much about the consumer as the product and service being consumed. Rance Bell of Burlington Township has 26 years of service with the Air Force behind him, the first six as a German-speaking linguist and the rest as a readiness superintendent for the Sixth Airlift Squadron at Joint Base McGuire/Dix/Lakehurst. On a sunny Tuesday morning, standing as he is able in his dining room as he recuperates from foot surgery, the retired master sergeant is extolling the virtues of home-automation technology, for which he pays $55 a month to Vivint, his Utah-based provider.

What's your experience of customer service? Is it getting better? Worse? We'd like to hear from customers, workers and managers alike. Send essays of 200 to 300 words by Sept. 18 to Voices/Service, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101. Send faxes to 215-854-4483 or e-mail to inquirer.letters@phillynews.com Questions? Call Kevin Ferris, readers' editor, at 215-854-4543.

I RECENTLY went to the Wal-Mart in South Philadelphia to shop for garden plants. I took four SEPTA buses to get there. When I arrived, I went through this non-automatic door and immediately was set upon by an employee, who told me "Wrong door. " The store was crowded and there were numerous people right outside the store collecting for charity and it was hard to tell exactly which doors to use. When I have been in that Wal-Mart on a few other occasions, some of the employees did not know how to properly treat the customers.

What you don't know about your customers can hurt your business. So, on Wednesday, the North Penn Chamber of Commerce will co-sponsor a customer service workshop designed to show businesses how to identify service problems and eliminate them. The discussion will include tips on improving service quality and enhancing word-of-mouth reputation. Admission is free, but seating is limited. The program is scheduled from 8 to 9:30 a.m. in the Centre Court Conference Center at the Best Western Hotel, Route 309 and Stump Road, Montgomeryville.

Customer service. These are seemingly helpful, friendly words, but in reality they get my blood pressure soaring, my temple throbbing, and my hands shaking. The mere thought of customer service conjures images of waiting on hold indefinitely, or pressing the wrong button only to end up listening to a help menu in a foreign language. In these times of a weakened economy but renewed national pride, some companies have greatly improved their dealings with their paying customers. Others, unfortunately, have not. Like many families, we own cellular phones.

Conrail yesterday named the veteran manager of its rail-car fleet to the new job of vice president of customer service, a move the railroad said emphasized its need to be more competitive with the door-to-door service of trucking companies. The new post was filled by Ralph von dem Hagen, who has been assistant vice president for car management since 1984. In that job, he managed the rail-car fleet, matching customer orders with available equipment. Chairman James A. Hagen said that although Conrail provided good service, it could be better.

Recently, I had a great idea while waiting on hold for Customer Service. That's pretty much all I do these days: Wait for Customer Service. My call is important to them. They have told me this many times in a sincere recorded message. They can't wait to serve me! They will answer my call just as soon as they finish serving the entire population of mainland China. It's my own darned fault that I need to speak to Customer Service. We made a really stupid homeowner mistake: We moved to another house.

Give the much-maligned Philadelphia Gas Works a call these days, and, unlike a year ago, you can actually get through to someone. So say city officials and the gas works' managers, who were forced by public outrage and by the state to overhaul the utility's call center after complaints that it took 20 minutes or more for customers to get their calls answered. "PGW used to be the laughingstock of the customer service world because it was taking us an hour to answer phone calls," Joyce Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mayor Street, said.

Brookside Manor Apartments and Townhomes, Lansdale, Montgomery County Three symbols of welcome are prominent in front of the Brookside Manor Apartments and Townhomes. First, a large sign with broad gilded lettering that seems to blurt out the name Brookside. Second, a stretch of bright red flowers lacing the entrance and suggesting a red carpet. Finally, a smaller and less conspicuous sign that indicates Brookside has won awards for "Best in Apartment Living" for the last five years from the Apartment Association of Greater Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON - The firestorm buffeting the Internal Revenue Service intensified Friday as lawmakers began what they promised would be an extensive effort to learn whether there was any political motivation or White House involvement in the agency's recently acknowledged misdeeds. Fueling those concerns, J. Russell George, the Treasury Department's top tax watchdog, said Friday that he had informed top Treasury officials last summer about problems related to the special attention the agency was paying some conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status.

Last fall, ironically right around the time I wrote about Vernon Hill, the banker whose evangelical emphasis on customer service has utterly disrupted the banking industry, I found myself encountering a string of customer service headaches. First, our newly installed gas heater went out. We'd been paying hundreds of dollars a year to F.C. Haab, the company that installed it, for a service agreement. They came out and told us we had a faulty blower motor. We'd have to wait for days - in the cold - for a replacement part.

I WOULD LIKE TO thank the Daily News for the help concerning my SEPTA issue ("Gripe from a bus rider," Jan. 30). The same day my letter was printed, director of customer service Rohan K. Hepkins called and stated he would look into the matter and apologized for the service and staff problem. Way to go, Daily News , for getting matters addressed. Maryann Zindell Philadelphia Take his word for it Re: "What Obama's up to" (letter, Jan. 29). Just want to give Tom Bell of Philadelphia a great round of applause for his comment.

During a recent fashion-insider breakfast marking the opening of the C. Wonder store in the King of Prussia Mall, Philadelphia Style editor Kristin Detterline   stood chatting next to a wall of the brand's oversize shades. Detterline was in midsentence when she spied a pair of black-tinted aviators - nearly identical to the Tory Burch sunglasses perched atop her layered tresses. The only difference was the logo on the hinges - Detterline's featured Tory's trademark T, while the C. Wonder versions had a similarly stylized C. "Wow," Detterline said.

On 1,200 acres of Philadelphia waterfront, where some of the Navy's most historic ships were built, a fleet of another sort will soon make what Anthony Bucci hopes will be a high-impact entrance. And not just because of the noise coming from the tailpipes. RevZilla.com L.L.C., an online motorcycle-gear retailer created five years ago by three friends wanting to indulge their proficiency with technology and love of bikes, will move to Philadelphia Navy Yard in February. It will leave its 35,000-square-foot, low-profile headquarters in an old South Philadelphia toy factory on Jackson Street and bring something novel to the business campus redevelopment site along the Delaware: shopping.

Utilities in the Philadelphia area were frantically restoring electricity knocked out by Hurricane Sandy, though some customers were growing impatient after four days without electrical service. Peco Energy Co. says it was on target to restore service by midnight Friday to 90 percent of the 850,000 customers who lost power. It says most of its remaining customers will be restored by Sunday. Most of the Peco outages are concentrated in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. In South Jersey, power companies were on a similar pace: 19,300 customers remained powerless in Burlington County; 7,500 in Camden County; 544 in Gloucester County; 5,553 in Atlantic County; 876 in Cape May County; 2,525 in Cumberland County; and 331 in Salem County.

Atlantic City Electric: 1-800-833-7476 Comcast: 1-800-266-2278 NJ Transit: 1-973-275-5555 PATCO: 856-772-6900 Peco customer service: 1-800-494-4000 Peco emergency: 1-800-841-4141 Philadelphia Gas Works: 215-235-1212 Philadelphia Water Department: 215-685-6300 PSEG: 1-800-436-7734 Philadelphia: 311 SEPTA: 215-580-7800 Verizon Communications: 1-800-837-4966

THE PHILADELPHIA area will likely still be getting throttled by the monstrous Frankenstorm, a/k/a Hurricane Sandy, on Tuesday, so the Daily News has compiled a list of helpful websites and phone numbers for our readers: *  Peco emergency, in case of power loss or emergency: 1-800-841-4141 *  Peco customer service: 1-800-494-4000 *  PGW: 215-235-1212 *  Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania hot line: 215-299-4000 ...