Remember all those jokes we used to make about the phone company and its legendary unresponsiveness to customer concerns? Well, a recent run-in with the people who supposedly sell me access to the World Wide Web – for lack of a better description we call these guys Internet Service Providers, or ISPs – has convinced me that the customer-service problem has migrated to the Internet. And I wouldn’t be telling you about the incident except that it happened at the same time as I had a remarkably positive encounter with a small Canadian loudspeaker maker. Believe me, that speaker maker could teach my ISP as well as any other business a thing or two about customer service.

First, you have to realize that for my business, I rely on access to the Web and e-mail as much as you rely on access to a supply of diesel fuel.

My ISP advertises that no matter where I am in Canada, I can get on the Web. So, when I was in Saskatoon a few weeks back, I tried to log on. All I had to do, I’d been told, was plug my computer into a phone jack and dial a certain number. This has certainly worked in Alberta, Quebec and my home province of Ontario. However, I now know it’s not that simple when I’m in one of the other provinces. There, I have to adjust a bunch of settings within my computer before the ISP will recognize me as a subscriber. Imagine if regular phones or cars were like that, where you have to adjust the technology to make them work if you’re in another province.

I tried to reset the thing. Didn’t work. My ISP offers a toll-free help number, but guess what? It’s not available from Saskatoon. Neither can I dial back to my home area code with the toll-free number to get help. I can, though, dial long distance to the Internet company, but it’s at my own expense and it’s charged back to my home phone account.

Confused? So was I. I called the public-relations people to get some answers. The human I ended up talking to was a very helpful tech-support guy who didn’t know why the ISP doesn’t provide a national access number, and neither was he authorized to speculate.

The best part was, I asked him what ISP he uses when he’s on the road. His answer? One of his competitors; AOL in fact. No wonder.

Then he told me about a service called Global Roaming that his ISP has had in the background for a while but elects not to promote. It seems that the customer has to first exceed some threshold of frustration before they’ll spill the beans about the solution. Still no 800-number to dial from, and still a bunch of settings to adjust, but easier access, I’m told.

While all this was going on, I was moving my home office from the basement to a renovated garage behind my house. In the process, I discovered that I’d blown a woofer in one of my stereo system speakers (I can’t work without music in the background). The speakers are a few years old, but they’re good ones, so I decided to e-mail the company, Axiom Audio in Dwight, Ont., to see if I could procure a replacement.

The replacement arrived within two days-free of charge. Axiom paid the shipping and thanked me for my business.

The next pair of speakers I buy will come from Dwight, Ont. I’m sure of that, but I doubt I’ll be placing the order via the same ISP I have now. The Axiom Audio people incurred some direct cost in keeping a customer happy, while the other crowd can’t even be bothered answering my calls. The sting of poor quality will be remembered long after the sweetness of a bargain price is forgotten. That’s something we can all take to the bank in dealing with the folks who pay our bills.