Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Simply put: Can’t be done.

I recently saw a headline “Clients shame companies into good service.” The brief article then went on to talk about how Comcast and AOL fired two employees when they got oh-so-high visibility out here in the Web world for truly world-class bad service (one fell asleep on a customer’s sofa; the other refused to cancel a caller’s AOL account.)

But, none of us can truly “shame” a company. It’s a souless, faceless entity, with no single point of accountability. Further, the service people within bad companies are usually far more unhappy than us customers (they’re having to talk to hundreds of people that are just as unhappy as me or you.) As I’ve noted previously, the companies totally miss the point and respond in knee-jerk fashion - firing the symptom rather than treating the problem.

Of course, the sorry state of Service America is something to which millions of us - both as company employees and customers - can relate, as evidenced by the responses (here, here, and here) to my rants about - er, analysis of - poor service.

The Bottom Line: Simply ranting on the Web about poor service, while it vents some frustration, typically only gets a knee-jerk PR reaction, if any. And, my/your individual problem never gets solved. Many companies still dismiss such online kvetching as trivial (a bad customer with a screw loose and a big mouth). No, they shouldn’t - but most BIG Company CEOs and their top brass don’t do much with a keyboard, much less stay current on market trends and technologies (”What’s this blog thing?”).

By all means, spread the word and raise visibility. But, if you’ve got a problem - couple the online word with real-world action. Write to the CEOs; don’t take “no” for an answer; and be persistent. And, on the company side - take a look at your internal processes and don’t think everything is simply a matter of the right PR spin. (If you’re one of those Big Clueless Company CEO’s assistants - good luck and my sympathy, since you’re the one who has to deal with customers’ complaints. I’ve worked in such toxic environments and it’s just awful.)

Related Posts:
Silence is NOT Golden.
No, we never ever want to talk to you, our customers.
People Who Need People
Customers - service versus processing
We Value Your Business!
My Pal, DONOTREPLY

Tags: customer service, Comcast, AOL, marketing, marketing troubleshooting

P.S. It took me about three times as long to post this today as it should - my “always on,” “high-speed” Comcastic connection keeps dropping. Funny. They still expect to get paid. And so it goes…