{"id":3703,"date":"2010-09-25T11:14:47","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T10:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=3703"},"modified":"2010-09-25T11:16:05","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T10:16:05","slug":"why-is-customer-service-rubbish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=3703","title":{"rendered":"Why is customer service rubbish?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of my professional time is spent sitting on statutory bodies representing the consumer, notably the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk\/\">Communications Consumer Panel<\/a> and the Board of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.consumerfocus.org.uk\/\">Consumer Focus<\/a>. It&#8217;s a truism that so much customer service is terrible. It seems that so many companies spent lots of money and time seeking to win you as a customer and then treat you appallingly when, as one of their customers, you have a problem or a complaint.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/talk\/financial\/2010\/09\/06\/100906ta_talk_surowiecki\">this fascinating article<\/a> in a recent issue of &#8220;The New Yorker&#8221;, the explanation is all down to &#8220;the efficient relationship paradox&#8221;. The piece concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The  real problem may be that companies have a roving eye: they\u2019re always  more interested in the customers they don\u2019t have. So they pour money  into sales and marketing to lure new customers while giving their  existing ones short shrift, in an effort to minimize costs and maximize  revenue. The consultant Lior Arussy calls this the \u201cefficient  relationship paradox\u201d: it\u2019s only once you\u2019ve actually become a customer  that companies put efficiency ahead of attention, with the result that a  company\u2019s current customers are often the ones who experience its worst  service.<\/p>\n<p>Economically, this makes little sense; it\u2019s more expensive to  acquire a new customer than to hold on to an old one, and, these days,  annoyed customers are quick to take their business elsewhere. But,  because most companies are set up to focus on the first sale rather than  on all the ones that might follow, they end up devoting all their  energies to courting us, promising wonderful products and excellent  service. Then, once they\u2019ve got us, their attention wanders.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of my professional time is spent sitting on statutory bodies representing the consumer, notably the Communications Consumer Panel and the Board of Consumer Focus. It&#8217;s a truism that so much customer service is terrible. It seems that so many companies spent lots of money and time seeking to win you as a customer and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3703"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3708,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions\/3708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}