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May 08, 2014
The Great Customer Service Ruse: What If Consumers Got Up Off Their Knees?
Is it just me?
Year after year, the cult of customer/client service "trends" stridently in books, trade journals, company meetings and on the internet. Service gurus are multiplying. Everyone is writing, gushing and testifying about the importance of service, often implying that service is no problem to establish and maintain. Businesses in every industry are proclaiming in giddy, self-congratulatory tones that service is, and has been for the last fifty or so years, a "core value" and "touchstone" of their success. And yet every year, the service that each of us experience on a daily basis in our own lives is getting worse and worse.
The culprits? Just about anyone who sells anything. Retail, especially. Retail banking, insurers, phone companies, utilities and the scads of outside "tech" guys charged with keeping your computers running are the worst. Two notable exceptions: Trader Joe's. GEICO. And that's about it. So let's start getting feisty at stores, coffee shops, on the phone with customer care reps, at doctors' offices, everywhere you pay for something. Remind them all you have options and choices. You're a customer, consumer, client or patient? Get off your knees. Demand things. Make them earn or keep your business.
Pay attention. Jay and Silent Bob want to buy something.
Posted by JD Hull at May 8, 2014 11:59 PM
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