I was a T-Mobile customer for 2 years, and was never treated that nicely. It seemed like every time I called, I was being pressured into signing another contract. Their systems were also always very slow, so while the rep was waiting for their service interface to load, they'd engage me in a lot of awkward small talk. I haven't been a customer for about a year, so maybe they've changed since then.

I recently called to make a change to my account. I was shocked by how nicely I was treated. To top it off, the person on the line gave me some helpful relevant tips too.

Customer service is the differentiator, especially in commoditized products/services except when hotel babysitting: http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/01/some-thoughts-o.html

That's a problem of information asymmetry where the only indicator of quality is the price.

I've recently had good experiences with ATT, T-Mobile and Netflix. I'm not exactly sure what the world is coming too, but it's very welcome!!

Actually, it's probably quite fun being a Netflix tech support, since you get to see all the movies, DVD and Instant Watch, that the customer has seen. Interestingly, the tech guy could also see the name of my Parallels instance that I use to watch the Netflix Instant Watch service, so they have a lot of information.

So VERY different from T-Mobile/Telekom in Germany. Here they still behave like the monopolist they once were.