I have mixed feelings on this. I have had some less-than-stellar customer service experiences with small local merchants, but I try to tolerate that somewhat, because I do want them to still be around. Big box stores are good at providing a consistent customer service experience because they treat employees as replaceable, and if somebody isn't good, the just fire them and plug a different person in that spot. The flip-side is that they are very bad at creating actual relationships between businesses and people. And providing a good work environment. And so forth. There is a local meat processor that I use, even though they can be gruff on the phone, and occasionally you have to be EXTRA careful to make sure they didn't mess up the cut sheet, because I am really, really happy that someone out there is running a family owned/operated business, and keeping the trade of small meat processing alive. This guy is teaching his sons how to process meat one animal at a time, by hand. On top of that, when we asked to tour his facility, he graciously accepted, and he even honored our request to be present while our first round of animals was killed, so we could understand the process better. So, in exchange for making sure that kind of thing still exists somewhere in the world, I'm willing to put up with a little bad customer service now and then. But that's a call that each of us has to make, and I don't mean to sound like I'm telling anybody else how to make it.
