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> Hi Everyone,
>
> I just read a great article in Forbes FYI magazine about what has to
> be the must unusual customer service operation around. The
> company is USAssist and they only provide their services to
> American Express Platinum card holders. What is this service they
> provide ? Basically, if it exists and it's not illegal USAssist will
> help its customers arrange, find, or aquire whatever they want. I hope you
> enjoy the following requests from the article.
>
>
> A client had a query of a different sort. New Year's Eve is fast
> approaching and he needs a savvy tailor to put together a tuxedo.
> No, not for himself. Where would be the challenge in that ? No, this
> is to be for his dog, an 80-pound Labrador standing two-and-half feet
> tall. Researchers finally find a tailor who consents to making a
> "Doggy Tuxedo."
>
> One woman, while on a cruse off the coast of Australia, called USAssist
> to say that she had been reading the novel "Prince of Tides", and
> discovered that the last ten pages were missing. She had to know the
> ending. So USAssist faxed a copy of the final pages to the ship.
>
> Then there was the client who ordered up a dozen singing telegrams to
> be delivered to a London home by women dressed as apes.
>
> One gentleman asked for help in finding what became known in the
> USAssist office as the "Cold Bra Case." The client was looking for a
> special bra, one that was filled with gel and designed to be placed in a
> refrigerator for half an hour before being worn. The purpose was to to
> make a woman's breasts appear "perkier," explained the client. After
> scouring a dozen domestic shops from Victoria's Secret to Pink Pussy
> Cat, researchers finally found the item in Paris. Recalls the researcher
> assigned to the case, "We would call and people would hang up on me -
> they thought I was a prank caller."
>
> Often clients call to have USAssist track down things they have seen in
> the movies and now wish to aquire. An Englishman took a fancy to the
> horse the Keven Costner rod in the opening scene of Dances With
> Wolves. USAssist found the animal and helped the gentleman purchase
> it. Another client wanted the opera glasses Julia Roberts used in Pretty
> Woman. Still another had his eye on the jacket Demi Moore wore in
> Indecent Proposal. One client even had the firm find him the exact chair
> Kevin Kline occupied in the faux Oval Office of the file Dave.
>
> Another call began "You are going to laugh at me, but I have a special
> request ..." Researchers always cringe when they hear those words.
> Fritz went on to explain that his ten-year-old daughter, Kelsey, a fourth
> grader, was doing a science fair project on salinity in water. Fritz asked
> researchers if they could procue for him a bottle of water from the Dead
> Sea in Israel. USAssist tried variousmarine research institues and
> universities in the U.S. hoping to find someone with a sample of Dead
> Sea water already on hand. No luck. Then the researcher called the
> Israeli Embassy and resorts along the Dead Sea - "raising chuckles
> throughout the world," he wrote in his computer notes. Finally, the
> researcher found a resort manager willing to personally wade out into the
> Dead Sea and collect the sample himself. Sometime later, little Kelsey
> sent USAssist researchers a thank-you note and a copy of her science
> fair report. She ahd won the blue ribbon.
>
> There was a request for an audio tape of the Koran in Farsi.
>
> Recently, top honors and a $25 gift certificate went to staffer Desmond
> Dutcher for his handling of a most remarkable inquiry: as Dutcher
> remembers it, the caller spoke in a low, deep voice and refused to give
> his last name. The client said he wanted to make a reservation for 17
> people to take a voyage to Mars. "I'm sorry," responded Dutcher,
> "American Express only makes interplanetary reservations for parties
> under ten."