You may recall my recent article about the Cingular stores owned by Spring Communications in Orem and Provo. I wanted to update you all as to the status of my complaint because some very interesting things happened with Cingular themselves as well as with Spring.

As I noted in my article, Cingular went into damage control mode and gave me a great deal on the phone I wanted to convince me to stay on their network. This was pretty amazing in and of itself, but the most impressive response came from Spring, the main reseller for Cingular in Utah and Colorado.

If you look at the comments on my article, you will see a comment from Jason Ellis who, as it turns out, is the president and CEO of Spring. In his comment he apologized on behalf of Spring and asked to get in touch with me. I emailed him my phone number, wondering if he would ever actually call - I mean Spring is a fairly sized corporation and Jason probably keeps himself busy enough without having to contact pissed off customers.

To my surprise, Jason did call after all. After a little phone tag Jason got ahold of me on Monday. Apparently my article had gotten some exposure, and even though I never directly reported a complaint to Spring, it came to Jason's attention and he wanted to take care of it personally.

Jason apologized again for the poor service I received in the Orem Spring store, and asked for another chance at having me as a customer. He admitted that they had had some other complaints from that particular area, and that the problem was most likely not employee level but with management and that he would have to look into better training or whatever needs to be done to fix the problem

And you know what? I believe him. I didn't sound like corporate-speak to me. Jason sounded genuinely sorry and like he was really going to take action to fix the problem. I was very impressed with the conversation I had with him, and even that he would contact me directly - I mean what's one customer after all? How much can I and my website really effect their bottom line? But it didn't seem like the bottom line was what Jason was worried about - he was worried about fixing the situation first, and I'm sure as a result his bottom line will be improved.

Jason explained that he felt like saying sorry wasn't enough, and wanted to offer me something for all the trouble I had been through. He insisted that I take something. He offered any wireless device I wanted or any accessory - basically anything I wanted for free.

Now, my first instinct here was to turn down his offer, let bygones be bygones. But he was insistent, so my second instinct was to go for gold and ask for another 8525. I could sell it on eBay or something and make a quick buck. But after considering that for a minute I decided it wouldn't be right to do so - I mean, after all, I never did actually end up buying anything from Spring - I'm not really their customer because they drove me to working with Cingular directly.

So I told him a bluetooth headset would be pretty cool. Not to pricey, but it would be cool to have and Jason could still send me something. He promised to send "two of the latest and greatest" headsets out overnight the next morning.

As promised, I received the two headsets wednesday morning. He didn't lie either, he sent me the latest and greatest headset available. I actually ended up trading one back in at one of the stores for a pair of bluetooth headphones (nice Jabra ones).

Jason also promised to give me a good experience in the future. He gave me the contact information for the Utah South regional manager, Lance Paulson, who is familiar with the situation. He told me to contact Lance next time I was ready to upgrade my device or for anything that I needed. I was promised that Lance would meet me in the store, if necessary, and make sure I had a good experience the next time around.

Let me just say that Spring's response, in particular that of Jason Ellis, was outstanding and exemplary. To be contacted by the president of a large company because you had a bad experience in their store is simply amazing. I'm sure Jason doesn't spend a lot of time on the phone with customers, so it made me feel like Spring really cared about what I thought of their store and the crappy experience that I had.

So Cingular and Spring brought me back - a pissed off customer who was ready to leave both companies behind for something else. Like I said before, I have been reasonably happy with Cingular and would have been sad to leave. I'm glad it didn't come to that.

I will continue to recommend Cingular as a service provider, and specifically Spring as a place to get a phone, because I know they will back up their commitment to excellent customer service. There are two Spring stores located in East Bay, one in the mall, and two in Orem - on University Pkwy and 800N and State.

Thanks to Jason Ellis for contacting me and rectifying the situation - and thanks for the goodies!