Excellence.

Got one of my pictures put onto canvas the other day. Picked Your Image 2 Canvas simply because Google threw them up, and despite my hatred of the use of "2" to mean "to". (It's not grammar pedantry; it's the fact that they're not really pronounced quite the same, and my inner voice insists on pronouncing the "2" as "two", not "to", and it just sounds really stupid in my head.) Anyway, glad I did.

I uploaded a colour photo and selected the "sepia" option. Paid me money, and a few days later got a nice big good-looking canvas — in colour. Oops.

So I emailed them:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I received my order today. It is very nice, thank you, but there is one error with it. As you can see from the email below, I asked that it be in sepia. The canvas I received today was in full colour.

Please let me know what may be done about this.

Thanks very much for your help.

I got this response later the same morning:

Hi there

Extremely sorry about this error. I have checked with the print team and we can confirm this was done in full colour, a small oversight.

Please keep the one you have received and I will action this order to be re completed.

Sorry for any inconvenience

Regards

Plus, what with having made a mistake, they were bloody quick about it: the replacement was dispatched that afternoon.

So now I have two versions. And, you know, the canvas doesn't look bad in colour at all.

It's brilliant customer service. So many firms would have insisted on trying to get the first canvas back, even though it's of no use to them, just out of some misguided principle. Your Image 2 Canvas did exactly the right thing, ensuring that their mistake caused the absolute minimum of inconvenience to their customer. I have no idea what the profit margins are in their business; they could even have made a loss on this one. But they've guaranteed my repeat business.

It's often said that any company can be good when things go right; it's when things go wrong that you find out who the good ones are.