I've been thinking about this, in fits and starts, about how my personal tolerance for poor customer service and appreciation for stellar customer service has changed over the last few years. There isn't a company out there claiming to have anything but a superior, well-trained, talented, at-the-ready support staff. No one says, our product's great but our service sucks. I know of what I write.
But we have changed. Call us consumers (but please don't), call us customers, call us clients. A rose by any other name still has a wallet. And what we expect out of a company is something of an inverse proportion to the amount of change ding-a-linging in our change purses.
What I mean is this: during recent times of plenty--not now, but think back to the good days that came just after the last time when things were just like this--we didn't expect much. We said we did. But we didn't. Not really. Because we had a lot. Most of us, at least more of the U.S. than is now the case, had more money, spent more money, and felt like business and especially the Internet offered limitless opportunities.
And it was in that spirit that we got involved in, and accepted, a lot of crap. It was cool to grab a beta product, to help companies work the kinks out, to just go ahead and fix things yourself. Gee wiz, they're really busy changing the world over there--should I expect them to be there to answer this simple question? I'm lucky to have my hands on this great product. I'm so glad they accepted me as a client! I uttered, and heard, those words more than once.
My how things have changed.
Now, companies like Dell, and they're not alone, are feeling the wrath and repercussion of a public that put up with a lot and didn't mind it. As we have fewer and fewer pennies in our hands, as fewer and fewer of us have jobs at stable companies--or jobs at all--we have become more demanding. Really demanding. Forget about pulling out and taking our business elsewhere--we're pulling it in and not taking our business anywhere. Forget about beta, I want to pay $19.99 for a solid product, or I won't bother getting one at all.
In a time of haves and haves not, we haven't. And we just won't.
It seems to me, then, that the companies staffed and positioned to deliver on the promise of superior customer service--and companies already leveraging customer information and putting it to good use (amazon is one of the few that comes to mind, and earthlink isn't bad either.)--stand the best chance of all of surviving these challenging times, and actually floating to the top in an ocean full of sinkers.
Who am I to say? I'm a customer, a client, and on my worst days a consumer. And I've also repeated the "great service" mantra in my writing with the largest and tiniest companies for 20 years now. Sometimes I've known it to be true. Sometimes I lied. Sometimes I took a guess. But now, when I see a company that delivers on their language around responsiveness to customers, I know it's something special. I grab it in my writing and showcase it. Because I know my own wallet's empty. I know I'm not experimenting anymore on my dime. And I can appreciate and tend to give my business to companies that "get" that.
Just something that crossed my mind today, as I'm working away on a brochure and simultaneously mopping the kitchen floor. Those crazy multi-tasking consumers. Ain't we something!
