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A few days ago, I used StubHub (www.stubhub.com) to purchase tickets to tonight’s Golden State Warriors game (which was, by the way, a lot of fun, despite the disappointment of the loss). StubHub is an online marketplace for tickets to live entertainment events (such as concerts and sporting events). You can think of it as a ticket-specific eBay or Craigslist — an appropriate analogy, given that eBay acquired the company in January — except that you obtain your purchased tickets directly from StubHub, who obtains them electronically from the seller.

During the course of this transaction, I interacted with a few different representatives of StubHub. The first two interactions were by telephone, and they were fantastic: the people I talked to were courteous, straightforward, and helpful. Before clicking “Buy”, I had to find out if I could avoid the stated requirement that I have the purchasing credit card physically present when I picked up the tickets I was ordering, because I was using my mom’s card. Instead of hiding behind inflexible rules and treating me like an idiot as many companies would, the representative simply told me, “yeah, we understand that requirement isn’t very realistic these days, so our pickup centers generally don’t enforce it, but if you like, we can send an email to the center to guarantee that you won’t need to present the credit card at the time of pickup.” Not only did he acknowledge that I had a legitimate concern and say that the company had already thought about it, but he also offered me the opportunity to take further action to address it, just to give me an added sense of security. That made me feel great about using StubHub to buy the tickets, so I went ahead and placed the order.

Then, when I called back this morning to ask them to send that email, I explained my situation to a new representative. Instead of forcing me to step through a frustrating list of irrelevant questions (as so many call centers do these days) just to get up to speed, she quickly understood exactly what I wanted and offered to complete the request immediately. She knew precisely what her company’s policies were and what another representative would have told me, and she was able to act on her own authority to give me what I wanted. I had been expecting this second call to require me to explain myself several times (“I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure what another representative may have told you, but I can’t do what you’re asking”), and when it didn’t, I was so shocked that I actually told the woman I was speaking with, “By the way, you guys have great customer service.” That’s something I never do.

Finally, when I picked up my tickets at a hotel near the Oracle Arena, everything was silky smooth. I just walked in, showed my driver’s license, and the woman handed me an envelope with our tickets, assuring me that I was all set. The whole thing took less than sixty seconds.

This all might seem pretty straightforward, but these days, interacting with businesses is often anything but. As a result, basic customer service has become something to write about instead of something to expect as a matter of course. For some reason, most businesses seem to think that when I present them with a problem, I want them to restate the problem, or even better, tell me about new problems I didn’t even know about. Here’s a hint: when your customer has a problem, give him a solution. He doesn’t want problems or excuses, only solutions. People and companies who are solution-oriented instead of problem-oriented will always do a better job of delivering what their customers want.

It seems so simple to me. Companies these days think their business is about them. It is not. It is about their customers. When a rep tells you that your perfectly logical request is “impossible” or “not how it works”, what he is really saying is, “I work for a company whose culture encourages us to think about our problems first and your needs second.” Companies like StubHub, on the other hand, understand the simple truth that it doesn’t matter what you do if your customer is not happy with it. And if you do make your customer happy, he will be your customer again. That’s not naive philosophy or head-in-the-sand silliness; it’s straight-up good business.

When I first saw what I was paying for my Warriors tickets – a 10% commission plus a $15 handling fee, on top of the price the seller was demanding – my gut reaction was anger. “Greedy bastards!” I thought. After going through the process, I believe it was worth every penny. I didn’t have to talk to drones with fake names in international call centers; I talked to real people who treated me like a real person with a real name, and when I had a problem, they gave me an easy solution that ensured that I would give them my business.

That kind of service costs money, and I’m willing to pay for it, every single time.