The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Is service really that bad?
Tuesday - March 20, 2007 03:23 PM in
We all know that consumers hate the current state of affairs in customer service.
But is it really so bad that customers feel the need to adopt some of thetactics advocated by John Ewoldt in today's Star Tribune: picketing a retail store, adopting sneaky tricks to get a dealer to accept a written cancellation notice (which the dealer refused to accept via regular mail), and carpet-bombing a company's PR contacts with customer complaints.
Ouch!
I have no doubt that these tactics are effective--either in practice or simply as a threat--but it's a sad commentary that they're necessary.
A lot of consumers perceive that companies aren't interested in anything other than squeezing the most profit out of each individual transaction, with little or no consideration of the value of the relationship with the customer over time.
Add to that entire industries which now implement customer-hostile policies as a matter of standard practice: "gotcha" games with credit card fees, egregious overbooking on airlines, multi-year mobile phone contracts, to name a few.
Is it any wonder that the level of trust between consumers and companies is at such a low point?
There's an old saying that you earn trust by the teaspoon, and lose it by the gallon.
But just because earning people's trust is hard is no excuse to not try. Business transactions are supposed to be fair to both parties--but too many customers today feel that the company holds all the cards and plays for keeps.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Ouch!
I have no doubt that these tactics are effective--either in practice or simply as a threat--but it's a sad commentary that they're necessary.
A lot of consumers perceive that companies aren't interested in anything other than squeezing the most profit out of each individual transaction, with little or no consideration of the value of the relationship with the customer over time.
Add to that entire industries which now implement customer-hostile policies as a matter of standard practice: "gotcha" games with credit card fees, egregious overbooking on airlines, multi-year mobile phone contracts, to name a few.
Is it any wonder that the level of trust between consumers and companies is at such a low point?
There's an old saying that you earn trust by the teaspoon, and lose it by the gallon.
But just because earning people's trust is hard is no excuse to not try. Business transactions are supposed to be fair to both parties--but too many customers today feel that the company holds all the cards and plays for keeps.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 03:23 PM by | | | |