Some of those companies in their good list I have doubts on. They reek of astroturfing.

Obviously we don't agree with Comcast but I have had great experiences with Canon support.

These kind of things are arbitrary. Many of the complaints that I read were from people who were either (1) actually wrong themselves or (2) completely misunderstood something.

That being said, yes, certain companies are more pleasant to deal with than others.

@Raekwon: I contacted Canon support about a 4 year old Camcorder that was WAY out of warranty. They blamed the problem on a faulty part, took total blame, paid for shipping and fixed it for free. It actually caused me to buy 2 more digital cameras. A lot to be said about good customer service.

html is lolzed up

@zegolf: two tiny screws fell out of my canon camera. I called canon because I took the camera to a few hardware/electronics stores and couldn't find the right size replacements. When I asked the canon person about buying it she said they'd just ship them to me at no cost and apologized about the inconvenience. They arrived the next day and have managed to stay in my camera this time.

I love you, ING Direct.

Paypal should be in that bottom group.

I have to deal with D-Link call centers all the time. There has not been ONE time that I have accomplished anything anywhere near considered customer support.
Between having the least traing technical support (they read the manual back to you), extreme wait times (put the phone down and read War and Peace) and inability to understand alpha bravo letters let alone english it is the most frustration to be had on a phone.

You have a better chance still having Ed McMahon show up at your door with a check than having a problem solved with these guys.

[/rant]

Great site though.

@aidenn: With the exception that they won't allow real-time access from my Mint account, I heart ING Direct as well.

Let's slow down here.

[www.customerservicescoreboard.com]

Has 10 reviews total. All negative. 10 is a pretty small sample size. Let's wait for this website to get some steam going before we judge the top and bottom companies.

By comparison.

[www.customerservicescoreboard.com]

Comcast has 8 total, 4 positive, 4 negative.

@JustinSane07: [www.customerservicescoreboard.com]

Facebook. 118 negative. 0 positive. Not one person has something nice to say about Facebook? Really? Really?! I find that hard to believe.

Btw, ING Direct, the no. 1?

[www.customerservicescoreboard.com]

7 total reviwes. All positive.

This site doesn't weight.

[www.customerservicescoreboard.com]

3 negative, 2 positive and it's no. 28. What? Really? On top of that, World of Warcraft isn't even a god damn company.

I've changed my mind. This site stinks.

I clicked a couple of companies at random there. Comcast had eight reports. ING had six. Craigslist had ten. I'm thinking that's really just not enough data to make me feel like this is a reliable site. Six reviews may be enough for me to decide whether or not I want to try that new Thai place down the street, but six people just isn't enough to convince me that ING has the best customer service in the out of all other companies listed.

The other part of this is that people tend to only write reviews for companies when they have either a very very good experience or a very very bad experience. Unless data from a properly designed and performed survey is used, everything listed is just anecdotal.

@JustinSane07: I notice in your first link that one of the 10 negative reviews that craigslist received was because someone could not figure out how to enable cookies. That is definitely craigslists' responsibility, and exemplifies terrible customer service on their part. ()
So just like reviews on any other site, they must be taken with a grain of salt (e.g. 1 star reviews on amazon because of long ship times) but trends can be informative.

@Roy Hobbs: And with the exception that they hold your money hostage since you can't write paper checks from it or get more than $1000 a day in cash. That was pretty awesome for us when we needed a $2,000 check for escrow on our new house that day.

Without LL Bean, the "best" list is meaningless.

@pb5000: I'm in the market for a nice new camera and these kind of stories will really push me in the direction of a Canon. Thank you.

And no I have nothing to do with them

@tiatrack: ING doesn't issue paper checks. You were at your closing before you realized you didn't have a checkbook?

@ElizabethD: PayPal has the crappiest imaginable customer service. I bought some Crocs (spare me the ugly shoes cracks) from an EBay vendor who posted a picture of genuine Crocs and assured me that their product was genuine. Surprise, surprise, they weren't genuine. I actually get burned on EBay less than I do in retail stores, but this time I just wasn't lucky.

Anyway, to process the claim, Paypal is requiring me to send them a letter on official company letterhead from an authorized Crocs distributor, with a contact name and phone number from someone at the authorized distributor for verification, stating that the shoes I have are not genuine Crocs. The Paypal rep told me I could just walk into any store that sold Crocs. Right, I worked in retail for many years and I can't think of a single store that would do this or that even had company letterhead available. Paypal will not budge.

I contacted Crocs and send them pics of the shoes and a copy of the e-mail from the EBay vendor admitting that they sent me counterfeit items (yes, they actually admitted it), and they are working on sending me a letter through their LEGAL DEPARTMENT. Christ.

I totally agree with Gateway, and with most computer manufacturers' customer service, for that matter.

Having just spent the past 45 minutes on the phone with Comcast simply trying to figure out why my On Demand doesn't work (I was hung up on two times), I think they belong at the bottom of any customer service list.

Skype's customer service sucks. They literally made fun of me one time.

Farking reply feature's broken again (and comments are off for half hte articles to boot). So instead of reply, new comment!

How is it that comcast can have a 50 percent rating, yet a company with a 60 percent rating is ranked more than 20 spots lower? Seems rather..arbitrary

As with 'independent research,' think tanks, polls and assorted mainstays of alleged unbiased authority, I'm curious why the hosts of the scorecard site aren't forthcoming at all about who they are, who is subsidizing this effort and what their motivation is.

This could very easily be a pay-to-play corporate campaign. After all, how many people even know about such stellar practices as paying for prime shelf space in the grocery store or the myriad companies that are under one megacorporation's umbrella?

Besides, where else could such notorious doorslammers like Comcast, Verizon, Paypal or Countrywide be considered in anything approaching a competent, positive light?

Dell, included on any list whatsoever sporting the words "best" is all the indictment I need...

That green on grey score irritates my eyes and I'm guessing it's probably not so grand for folks with color-blindness either.

@Raekwon: My experience with Canon customer service is very positive; similar to what the previous posters have described on this thread. Better than expected, and basically excellent.

OMG I remember buying a D-Link router, and when we could get it to work we'd call them. For some reason, every time we reached a certain point in the phone call, we'd get disconnected, and there was nothing wrong with our phones.

We gave them our phone number should we be disconnected again, and no one ever called us back. My husband found his old LinkSys and that's what we've been using.

@JustinSane07:

LOL @ the WoW thing. That is just retarded.

Thank you for doing the research.

As with 'independent research,' think tanks, polls and assorted mainstays of alleged unbiased authority, I'm curious why the hosts of the scorecard site aren't forthcoming at all about who they are, who is subsidizing this effort and what their motivation is.

This could very easily be a pay-to-play corporate campaign. After all, how many people even know about such stellar practices as paying for prime shelf space in the grocery store or the myriad companies that are under one megacorporation's umbrella?

Besides, where else could such notorious customer doorslammers like Comcast, Verizon, Paypal or Countrywide be considered in anything approaching a competent, positive light?

Dell, included on any list whatsoever sporting the words "best" is all the indictment I need to regard the scorecard site with a jaundiced eye. I suppose when your reputation is on par with root canal, you could conceivably just start a ratings blogsite where you revise your culpability and filter your reviews.

Remember, Sony was busted for fabricating a 'critic,' David Manning, to promote their movies.

@Traveshamockery: I said escrow, not closing. As in, the $2,000 you pay to the title company to say "yes, we in fact do want this house." We found the house on Sunday and submitted the offer that night. We needed a check that night in order for our offer to be submitted to Freddie Mac (bank owned). They don't look to fondly on the "I promise ING is sending it in the mail and you'll have it in 3-5 business days."

@sbcpunkrocker: I completely agree. I looked through the Skype complaints, and while many of them were valid (most centering on their lack of a phone number to call) a bunch of them were just people who don't know how to use the program, or complaints that aren't Skype's fault.

Paypal should be on the bottom list. Their customer service is also non-existant.

@Nighthawke: Some of the bad companies are definitely... well... bad.

D-Link is the only company I've ever had blatantly sigh and then hang up on me so I KNEW it was purposeful. I won't ever buy another D-Link anything since they're always the crappiest pieces of junk you can get for your money.

@Fresh-Fest-1986: I've had mine for almost a year and it's been great. (no I also have nothing to do with Canon either)

What is the criteria for their rank? How do you get a good rating vs. bad one? I think that's pretty important, otherwise it's arbitrary. I think it's a good idea to rate customer service; helps consumers decide which companies to go with vs. another. For example, I would pay a little more for a product if they had a high customer service rating vs. paying less and horrible customer service. But the ratings have to be reliable.