Customers Speak Out In The Internet Age
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This blog post is a follow-up to a recent article, Customer Service, New Marketing in the Internet Age. The article was addressed to business owners to remind them that the world has changed dramatically. Customers are now in control. The Internet gives customers new information and powers. This post is one place where you can exercise that power. You can add a comment if you found a company particularly poor on customer service. Equally if you found a company particularly good on customer service, then why not proclaim it to the world.
In the past people were sometimes reluctant to complain to a company, since problems were often not resolved by talking to the company. Now there is an alternative: you can talk to everyone out there. People do that in a variety of ways. For example on the recent opening of competition to the Canadian cell phone market both the Globe and Mail article, Cell phone giants lose stranglehold, (now behind a subscription wall) and the CTV article, Ottawa’s wireless auction could cut cell phone rates, each received scores of comments in very little time.
If you do a Google search for poor customer service, you can quickly confirm that customers are speaking out. Sometimes it’s in their own blogs and sometimes it’s via surveys. Here are some of the relevant links. Some of them are now some years old but they still timelessly signal someone’s discontent:
- Poor Customer Service Is Top Reason Consumers Switch Service Providers
- Whatever happened to customer service? Let your lawmakers know.
- The Customer Service Hall of Shame
- Poor Customer Service - online retailer (ThinkGeek)
- AOL Said, ‘If You Leave Me I’ll Do Something Crazy’
- Dell Customer Service
- Measuredup.com where connected, loyal and involved consumers share customer service and brand experiences
- Poor Customer Service is Top Reason Consumers Switch Service Providers
- Airlines attacked over ‘poor standards’
The rapid growth of social media such as Facebook means that the word is passed even faster now. It’s a customer revolution. If you’re not happy, or if you’re elated, then pass it on by adding a comment here.
BPWrap
January 20th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Great topic! It’s rare to get great customer service … especially on the web. I recently was impressed by the service displayed by a guy named “James Brausch” after requesting some information. Most of the time, you never hear from a live person. Thanks for sharing!
- Laz
June 17th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Truth - People often don’t come to companies with their problems, because past experiences have been negative. So many time have I’ve experienced this in my life. To have a successful company it is important to make raving fans of your customers. A simple example of this, is a small sushi place here where I live and the owner remembered me, even though I have only been there so many time, it made me feel great and appreciated. On the other hand there are to many companies today with horrible customer service. Great Article!