IT NEVER FAILS.
Bad economic conditions always lead to poor customer service.
Don’t ask me why this happens but it always does. Whenever companies (mostly large ones) are faced with tighter budgets, the group that inevitably pays the price are their customers. It can be an onerous return policy, a hike in fees or maybe headcount sacrifices in customer service departments. Instead of a phone tree, you are faced with a “phone forest”.
CAUTION:
This… I’ll screw them over now and deal with it later approach is not what it used to be. It’s true that in the past consumers did forget eventually once the economy got humming again but it might be harder in this technological age to rely on this business practice.
Due to the prevalence of social media interaction on the web, it will be much harder for corporations to erase their evil deeds during this recession. Blog posts, facebook groups, peer online reviews, tweets and archived online news articles are in essence… FOREVER.
The bottom line is that it always costs more to acquire new customers when compared to keeping and growing the customers you already have. The next time you find yourself in a conference room discussing budget cuts and going through the line items, don’t reduce your customer service and don’t look to your existing customers for more fees. After all, we are still living in a free economy where Capitalism prevails. Your customers always have the option to leave you in an “Internet Minute”.
Until Next Time…
