I recently — OK, just yesterday — moved to a new place in Jersey City, N.J., which significantly decreases the commute I previously made.

In the midst of making many changes with addresses, phone numbers, finances, and the like, moving to New Jersey now meant I had to change my mode of transportation from Metro-North Railroad to The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, commonly referred to as the PATH.

Since getting the 30-day unlimited pass would work best for both my sanity and wallet, I had to get the SmartLink card. In all actuality, it’s a very cool idea. You just tap the card — which looks and feels like a credit card — at the turnstile to gain entrance. You tap it again at vending machines when you want to refill your card.

While it seems very easy to refill and take the PATH using this card, it is not as easy to get a card for the first time. You can either register for one online, or buy the card itself with a trip package at certain PATH stop locations after which you can then refill the card with an unlimited monthly pass.

It’s nice I know this now, but not so much this morning when I was going to different machines at the 33rd Street stop in Manhattan, trying to figure out a way to purchase a 30-day unlimited SmartLink pass outright. In my haste, I called the 1-800 number for PATH customer service only to find the office was not open yet. The automated response also told me I could leave a message.

Mind you, I’m extremely skeptical for leaving a message in a general answering machine that I’m sure is clogged with thousands of messages. I’ve talked to many people who have also found leaving a message for a general customer service time to be a tremendous waste. Nonetheless I gave it a shot, describing my issue (one of knowledge) and left my cell number so I could be reached.

Much to my surprise, I actually did get a call back from a PATH representative. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the call because I was in a meeting. To my further astonishment, a message was left and marked urgent. I just listened to it, and it described exactly what I needed to do along with the specific locations I could actually purchase a SmartLink card. The woman also left me a direct number — not the 1-800 one — to call just in case I needed more assistance.

The direction she left me was perfect, and I really don’t need to call back. I might, though, just to thank her. Now my memory attached to the PATH — so far — is a great one. In my experience monitoring tip lines and listening to myriad messages, I never expected to get a call back a couple of hours after I called.

The “customer experience” is something I — as well as many of my fellow CRMers — have been writing about for quite some time. Now the latest research from Aberdeen Group finding that 60 percent of respondents have a customer experience management (CEM) program in place, and the remaining 40 percent plan on incorporating a CEM initiative in the next 30 months.

Being that this is a seemingly growing trend among organizations, I want to turn this over now to you, the reader. Have you been getting a better experience when you’ve had to interact with the customer service arm of organizations? Do you feel in your own interactions that we are heading down the path — slight pun intended — of a renewed emphasis on customer service? I’d love to hear your story.