Gotta love great personal customer service in the age of e-commerce. Here’s the story:

At our big annual Christmas gathering, brother-in-law Joshua gave a cool map of the world puzzle to our visiting sister-in-law, Neha. Geeks that we are, we were happy to devote our living room floor to the task of putting it together. Many hands helped — Jane, Sherri, Anne, Ian, Luke, to name a few. By the day after Christmas, we had it finished except for (oh, snap!) one missing piece! We looked all over to no avail. It could have easily gotten caught up in all the wrapping paper and packaging that came and went from that floor. Neha said not to worry, but as far as I’m concerned, a puzzle minus one piece is ruined. Not on my watch!

I pulled out my iPhone, looked up the website of the company (www.abroaderview.com, in Roswell, GA), found their phone number, and dialed. Friendly guy named Charles picked up, listened to my story and without hesitation said they could replace the piece if we can identify which one. He also needed some info from the box to identify the edition of the puzzle. (Gotta love that they care enough to update the puzzle as the world changes!) So I took a few photos with my iPhone and emailed them.

Today, the missing piece arrived in the mail to Neha and Ian in DC, along with Charles’s hand-written PS: “Great Images!”

Three cheers for a great little company that picks up the phone rather than sending calls to some automated phone system, and stands behind a great line of products with a mission to increase global geographic awareness.