outstanding levels of customer service

Perhaps it's a function of age, an imperfect nostalgia for a time that only ever existed in the fevered imaginations of advertisers and Daily Mail journalists, but I long for companies to start loving their customers again.

They hate us. They tolerate us because we give them too much money for goods too shoddy to deserve their price tag. But deep down they hate and distrust us and want us to go away.

The following story is true but all identifying features have been removed - after all, I wouldn't want to give the business free advertising, nor do I want to be accused of libel.

I bought a thing. A few months later, one of its functions stopped working. I took it back to the shop. The charming sales assistant, who clearly liked customers and hated the employer (this isn't going to last long), exchanged the thing for a brand new one, fresh out of the box in front of me. We even tested that all the functions worked on the new one.

But I made a mistake. I hadn't noticed that I had left a minor peripheral tucked inside the thing that I handed over. Sadly, that peripheral was not tucked into the replacement. When I went back the following day, the returns had been sent, the peripherals were not sold separately, there was nothing anyone could do except take my name and phone number. One month passed - I heard nothing.

I emailed. The reply came back:

"Unfortunately we do no supply the [.......] as a spare part. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused."

(This has not been doctored, other than removing the name of the peripheral. Yes, it does say 'no' instead of 'not'.)

I wrote again, asking them to think again if this was the best they could do. The product is manufactured for the shop and sold under its name - they might not sell the spares but couldn't they obtain one? The reply came back:

"I am very sorry to hear of your disappointment, however, we do not supply the part to send out to you. I can only suggest you try your local store as sometimes they have spare parts in there stock room. Please accept my sincere apologies for the disappointment caused."

They are very good at apologising - both for inconvenience and for disappointment - not quite so good at choosing between 'there' and 'their' and very poor at spelling the name of their company (which I have not chosen to reproduce for reasons already explained).

Am I being unreasonable in hoping for a better response? I had offered to pay for the part.

A (thankfully small) part of me wants to go into the shop, buy a whole new product, extract the bit I need and then smash the rest into tiny pieces in front of whichever lucky punters are in the shop at the same time. I am glad to have reached a level of maturity whereby I do not seriously entertain the notion that I might do this. Perhaps I could put it into a story instead. Hey - that gives me an idea.....