Why I am a new fan of AAA

I've had a piece of mail sitting on my desk for about 3 months. (this may explain my need to purge, but I digress...) The mail was from AAA, and it was an offer waive the $17 enrollment fee. I've been meaning to get to this and become a AAA member for months (this limited time deal expired in mid-September) but for some reason I never got around to it.

...and boy, did I feel stupid about never getting to it today.

Early this afternoon, I went to our garage and tried to unlock my car from the remote on my key. Nothing.

I unlocked my car by physically inserting my key into the lock on the car door. When's the last time you've done that?

I tried to start my car, but... nothing. Nothing at all.

Apparently, *someone* (who shall remain nameless) forgot to turn off the lights when we came home Thursday night. The battery was dead.

Luckily, Dick was getting his car from our other (rented) garage space, and was driving up the block towards me. I managed to signal him, and he pulled his car inside the garage my car was stuck in.

We hooked up our jumper cables, but alas, just a click, and nothing more.

Again, and again, and again...

We figured the battery was probably dead.

So, as I've mentioned, I've been meaning to join AAA for just such an emergency. We figured there was no time like the present.

I signed up online (although I no longer had a code to waive my enrollment fee) and immediately called them to see if they could send someone over to check my battery. At this point, we assumed that a new battery may very well be order.

We had read on the AAA site that it would take 2 days after enrollment to be able to use our membership. That would be okay, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

And I'm glad I did! The nice woman at AAA (Dottie was her name) was oh-so-helpful and friendly. I told her that I had signed up for my membership no more than 5 minutes earlier, but she said that would be fine. She called a tow-truck in my City, and told me he would be here in less than 15 minutes.

The AAA truck came, the guy took out his heavy duty battery charger thingy, and voila... my engine turned over on the first try!!

AAA - FTW!

He suggested that I drive my car around for at least 30 minutes before turning off the engine (which I did), had me sign a piece of paper, and was on his way.

So there you go.

I have plenty of blog posts with rants about companies and bad customer service.

It's so nice to write a post about a GOOD customer service story.

Thank you, AAA!