Sometimes good customer service comes in the most unexpected places.

I had a few items to mail this morning so I headed over to our very small US Post Office in Ivins, Utah which is just a couple of blocks from my house. I was greeted as I walked through the door by a nice lady who asked if I needed help. I told her I had a few items to mail and was looking for a couple of padded envelopes. She found the right sized envelopers and mentioned that I could send the DVD as “Media Mail” at a discount. I had a small item that didn’t quite fit into the envelopes they had in stock, but before I could ask if they carried other sizes, this lady went into the backroom and pulled out a small box that was just the right size. She helped me pack the item and pulled out a roll of tape to ensure the box was closed securely. It was like having my own packaging assistant!

This was all very unexpected. The US Postal service isn’t the first business that comes to mind when I think of excellent customer service. But I’ve got a different view of the USPS after my experience this morning.

I subscribe to Sirius satellite radio. Whenever I hear a song I’d like to own I pull out my phone and leave myself a “memo” which reminds me to download it once I get home. One of the best things about Sirius is the ability to see the songs title as well as group or artist. Once home, I’ll fire up WarezP2P and see if I can find the song to download. If the song is from a group with which I’m not familiar, I’ll download a few other songs from them. If I like more than a couple of songs I’ll go buy the album. This very scenario played out when I ran a Hotline server a few years ago. Someone uploaded a song from the Sundays called “Here’s Where the Story Ends” and I liked it so much I went to Tower Records and bought every CD of theirs I could find.

Some may ask why don’t I just use iTunes, Napster or some other “legit” music service? Well, quite simply I don’t use them because they come with too many restrictions attached. When I purchase a CD I can burn a copy for backup. I can rip it to mp3 and send a song or two to my friends who may end up purchasing their own copy. If I end up not liking the CD I can sell it at Graywhale or Ebay it. I refuse to use iTunes because I’d need a user manual to keep track of all the restrictions placed on purchased music file. Same goes for Napster. The idea of paying Napster $15/month to have full access to their catalog which disappears if I don’t continue the subscription just doesn’t make sense. Sounds like the type of plan only a cell phone company could devise.

I would use iTunes or another music service if it sold high quality mp3s instead of proprietary formats like AAC and WMA. I want to support the artists which I have to the tune of over 800 CDs over the years. And before that in cassette and vinyl. I’m pretty sure I’ve purchase Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” at least half a dozen times. But I won’t support a music service that gives me less freedom with my music than I have now with CDs. The RIAA must not understand that suing your customers for thousands of dollars isn’t likely to yield more sales. If I had to hand over even a few hundred dollars to the RIAA I’d never purchase another CD again.

So what is the solution? Would I be willing to pay for all my music if the RIAA would be more lenient in allowing music services such as iTunes to sell singles in mp3 format? If I could download any song for 99 cents in mp3 format I’d probably never use another P2P application like WarezP2P or look for songs on Usenet.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. I don’t know what it is but I’m a bit tired of the internet and keeping up with my Bloglines feeds. Maybe a need a vacation. Maybe I’ve been spending so much time on the company website that I’m burned out when I get home and just want to veg out.

I’ve been thinking about good products that have gone bad. One product that comes to mind is MusicMatch Jukebox. MM used to be my mp3 player of choice when that’s all it tried to be. It was an excellent player which easily organized my mp3s. It included an easy to use encoder and was easy enough for anyone to use. But then those in charge decided they needed to jump on the music store bandwagon and the product went to pot. It’s a bad sign when nag screens begin popping up even though I had already purchased a lifetime of upgrades. Then MM started hogging system resources. It tried to be everything to everyone and it ended up becoming this huge bloated piece of junk.

I feel the same way about Microsoft Internet Explorer and I’m starting to feel the same way about Outlook. Internet Explorer now feels like an abandoned product while Outlook is starting to hog resources and thinks it’s a CRM solution.

Thank goodness for products Firefox.