this is pretty damn cool. phish released their new year's run as shn's and mp3's as downloads to purchase, and said they'd be available within 2 days of the show. i know i had a hard time getting thru for a day or so, but by yesterday afternoon was able to download all the shows. there was a strain on their server, which wasn't suprising to me. i had the shows within just a few days, which is fine by me. it was a bit of a hassle, but to be expected as they start this new service. today in my inbox i got this email:

Dear Live Phish Downloads User,

Thank you very much for your patience and encouragement as we experienced some growing pains this
past week. The entire New Year's Run is now available for download to those of you who
pre-ordered the shows.

As you may know, we had a glitch in our system which prevented many of you, our most loyal fans,
from downloading the shows you pre-ordered through livephish.com. In our rush to make each night's
show available the next day we were unable to respond to every customer support and feedback email
we received, and we wholeheartedly apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

We want you to know that the glitch arose when we lowered the prices for the New Year's Run
shortly after launching the site. Ironically, lowering the prices in response to your feedback had an
unforeseen ripple effect on everyone who pre-ordered the run at the new price. Once we were aware
of the problem on the evening of January 1 we attempted to fix it, but the problem proved to be
more elusive than we thought.

We are grateful for your support and positive feedback, and as a thank you for your patience over
the past few days we would like to offer you a free show download of your choice from the shows we
offer from the upcoming February Tour in the same format you purchased the New Year's Run. We
will notify you via email when the tour begins with instructions on how to order your free show.

Once again, thank you so much for bearing with us as we get this up and running. We're very
excited to be able to make these shows available to you so quickly, and we will be continuously
upgrading and improving the service and customer support over the coming months.

Happy New Year!

--The Live Phish Team

go customer service! :) i'm a customer service dork...if i'm going to spend my money somewhere, i expect at least decent service. and when they go above and beyond, i'm usually hooked on the company. everyone i know has heard my 'patagonia pants i wore for 9months started to fall apart sent them for repair and they gave me my money back' (whew!) story. they stand behind their merchandise. (i know, they should for how damn expensive the stuff is, but it's bombproff stuff). i call it 'nordstrom style' service. dan once returned a pair of pants, that after 6 months of wearing (sitting at a desk!) the seat fell apart. (he has some cool boxers, but i don't think everyone needs to see them)...they gave him his money back, no questions asked. and said that they were sorry they fell apart so quickly.

contrast to my annoying robinson's may story from christmas...did i write that here? i did somewhere...had the receipt and they wouldn't give me the money back, only put it on the credit card of the person who bough it - it was a gift. if i had the GIFT receipt they would give me a store credit. not money back, but only store credit. i would settle for store credit, but they wouldn't give me that either. the manager, who *might* be able to solve the problem had 2 other departments to go to first. (because their customer service is terrible, i'll bet)...the girl finally said she could give me a lower price, cash back, because that what it was worth now.

'i have a RECIEPT that says FULL PRICE was paid, and you WON'T give me the full price back?'

nope.

frustrated, with a line of disgrungled customers behind me, i took the cash. because if i got store credit, it would mean i'd have to set foot in that store again. not gonna happen. no macy's for me either - had very similar experiences there...maybe i expect too much, but if i can get better service elsewhere, i'll go there, thank you.