Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Julia Child once commented that Martha Stewart was about control, not comfort. I recalled this recently when a friend baked one of Martha’s labor-intensive cakes. She was upset because Martha didn’t deign to give a substitution for Meyer lemons so the cake didn’t turn out very well. As my friend huffed, “Would it have hurt her to give a few pointers? But, oh no, do it her way or not at all!” (Frankly, I think my friend is crazy anyway - just looking at the cake makes me tired, and I like to bake.)

And so - unfortunately - it all too often goes in business. Rather than building a relationship of trust and - yes - comfort - companies demand that customers do it the way it “should be done” with little to no regard of the customer. I know I’d far rather do business with a Julia than a Martha.

This just in - via Seth Godin: More failed efforts at control (Splenda buying up domains to try to control the message - yeah, that’ll work) and Monopolies versus everyone else (Phone companies once again demonstrate their monumental lack of marketing and customer service savvy.)

Related Post: Customer Relationship Mgmt: Try Laughing

Tags: customer relationship management, customer service