Customer Service in a Brave New World.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A friend sent me this link, and while the taped conversation between a paying customer and AOL representative is indeed hilarious, its really not funny when I stop and thing about it.

Because how did we get here?

We were just at the turn of the century and the world was turning online.

AOL was the center of the universe and the NASDAQ was the darling of Wall Street. Any business with a "dot com" in its name had Venture Capitalists lined up to throw money at it.

Then, along came a small company that believed they could offer a better search engine without annoying pop-ups or flashy banner ads. They also told investors they would offer the majority of their services for FREE and still be profitable. 

So what happened?

Well, its obvious.

AOL simply got beat with its quality of service, by a company called Google.

But, the real crime is that AOL tanked with their customer service. 

See, this is not an example of poor marketing, branding or business management, this is an example of flawed thinking.

Since, when do companies have the nerve to try to "upsell" their customers when they are trying to cancel their service?

Since when do companies think that the customer is wrong?

Since when do companies blow off our feedback and forget to listen to their customers?

I don't have a lot of these answers but but the only person to blame is You.

You allowed this to happen and as best-selling author, Seth Godin says, "You are smarter than the marketers selling to you every day…."

Before the internet and blogs, forums and online communities, many companies had whole divisions setup to handle customer care.

Companies were regularly rated in prominent newspapers and investors based their confidence and investments on the company's customer service programs.

Good companies fought very hard to have the best possible service.

There were whole divisions and departments setup to hearing customer's feedback and complaints. It was like the executives had entire virtual suggestion boxes at their disposal.

Then, globalization entered the equation and cheap, outsourced "customer service commodities" replaced actual customer service departments. The internet followed and many big corporations simply didn't see customer service as a necessity anymore as investors demanded tighter budgets and  bigger bottom lines.

I think its time for a change.

I think is time that we start demanding quality, service and start rewarding those companies that will truly listen to our feedback.

When you create your customer service department in your own company, don't look at a customer service department as a cost, but look at it as an investment.

It is so common to invest lots of money to attract and retain good customers through quality advertising, then why should a quality customer service department be any different?

Also, the managers in your customer departments should be sitting in your marketing meetings.

Why?

Because these customer service managers have the pulse of the market and KNOW what the market is saying (or yelling in AOL's case)

If the market is telling them that the widget is too this or too that, I think it would be pretty important for the marketing or design team to know that and repackage their product and/or message.

In summary, the best companies with the best customer service departments use the customer care departments much different than others. They not only treat their customers with care, but take the valuable feedback from their customers and then make improvements or changes to their product or message.

Surveys, and focus groups don't work either so don't bother.

You, the customer are smarter than you think.

You, the small business owner are smarter than the big business for knowing that.