I’ve been using pobox as a mail forwarding service since 1995 (I think I read about it in Wired and I was sold on the idea of a middle layer between my correspondents and my potentially ever changing email addresses). When I started owning my own domains I simply forwarded custom (“vanity”) email addresses from them to the pobox account and had everything funneled into one place.
Today I was poking around the pobox website and had a few questions about changing my settings and getting around the site, so I used their customer service form to send in two comments. Literally within minutes I had personal replies from their customer service rep, Kate Marstin.
In both cases her replies were informative, helpful, friendly, and personal. I did not feel like I was communicating with a robot or corporation.
I think my account at pobox is paid up through 2011, but effectively they’ve got me as a customer for life. Even when their website is overwhelmed by the myriad spams they are filtering out for me and all of their other customers or when I have trouble finding the right link to change my preferences, I’ll stick around because I feel like there are real people putting their actual selves into their work and their presence and their communication with their customers; and that they consider me, one of their customers, to be a real person worthy of a human response to a simple question.
Thanks, pobox.
