Center Of Attention: Customer Service

September 4, 2006 · View Comments

I originally started AttentionMax to chronicle the intersection of media, marketing and life. Not surprisingly, I find myself writing more and more about customer service as part of that intersection. That’s evident by my many rants about poor customer service (i.e., Lowes), as well as my reporting on interesting initiatives like gethuman.

As my colleague Pete Blackshaw often says, media – especially proliferating consumer-generated media – increasingly reflect customer service. (Not surprisingly, Pete was founder of PlanetFeedback.) As more people become co-participants and creators of media, brands will increasingly be held accountable by consumer expression, and consumers’ permanent and ongoing diaries of experience. If brands want to enter consumers’ lives and have relationships with them, they must be accountable not only at the front end (i.e., the pitch), but accountable through the middle (i.e., customer service) and tail end of the relationship (i.e., respecting wishes for relationship breakup).

That’s a long-winded way of saying that I’ve made “Customer Service” a new standalone category on AttentionMax. I will formally dedicate more attention to customer service.

This brings up an important question: should I change my tagline? AttentionMax: Max Kalehoff and his attention to marketing, media, customer service and life…

That’s pretty long-winded, but I’m so passionate about customer service that I’m almost compelled to.  What do you think?

 

Related posts:

  1. Inextricable Economic Link: Customer Sat, Customer Service & Customer-Generated Media
  2. What Really Matters: Brand Experience & Customer Service
  3. Customer Service Now Resides Openly In The Court Of Public Opinion…Are You Listening?
  4. Avoid Annoying Customer-Service Phone Trees
  5. Let Go? Or, Open Up?

Tagged as: Consumer-Generated Media, Customer Service

  • Right on Max and BCE!

    Coincidentally, it was the Toyota customer service experience posts that got me involved in the Toyota engine oil sludge matter. Customer service should absolutely be at the "center of attention."

    Respectfully, I ask that you please acknowledge those Toyota and Lexus owners who have signed a petition (legitimate CGM) I started one full year after the Customer Support Program for Engine Oil Gelation (April 4, 2002) was initiated. These owners are currently reaching out for a truly satisfactory customer service experience. They have put their faith in Toyota.

    Is someone at Toyota Motor Sales, Inc. really listening to this growing group of Toyota vehicle owners? Or, are their pleas falling on deaf ears...away from public scrutiny? I believe that the answers to these questions need to be openly, transparently, and publicly debated.

    I thank Bruce Ertmann at Toyota in advance for rising to meet the challenge presented by this public Toyota owner petition. Perhaps this will be a public test case to help define a positive customer service experience?

    Charlene Blake
    cblake@erols.com
    Toyota Owners Unite for Resolution
    http://www.petitiononline.com/TMC2003/petition.html.
  • BCE
    Right on Max!
    In my world, CGM is a near total reflection of the state of customer service within the industry and the company itself.

    And as more and more consumers start to vote a second time by virtue of their increasing awareness and fondness for that creative electronic space shaped by them . . . well, companies will find that if they have not taken the time and given thought to how they define the customer experience for their own customers, they can rest assured that customers/consumers will define it for them, often in excruciatingly painful detail for all the world to take in.

    I favor the term "customer experience", because it speaks to more of the 360 of customer service--like the three stages you define in your post. It also is better for companies to think of (and define) the broader concept of the overall customer experience, because it forces them to consider not only the physical components (a beautiful, high quality luxury car) but also those that drive the emotional response to the ownership experience (how does it make me feel to drive this car?; what is the quality of the relationship with the dealership?).

    And BTW, if a company--long entrenched in building the finest widgets known to mankind and womankind--is struggling with pulling out the emotional parts of the widget customer experience, its widget management need only drop in to one of the many popular widget consumer enthusiast sites on the net or do a quick You Tube search to see what its customers are doing with their widgets . . . and widget management will get a pretty good idea of the emotional components of the widget ownership experience and whether its hot or cold, green or red.

    Not sure how that would look in your tagline, but it does encompass the whole of customer service and then some.
  • CK
    Actually, it's the customer-service posts that brought me to your blog in the first place. So I'm pleased it's at the "center of attention."

    Since you're asking opinions, my suggestion is that your tagline should be focused on an "attention to accountability". While that's not the perfect nomenclature, to me your site shows what all marketers need to be accountable for--and the best practices thereof.

    Not sure if that rings right with you, but for what it's worth, accountability is a strong word with marketers and the media.

    In any case, glad you've divined a customer-service category as I've quickly come to realize that customer service is the industry's critical success factor (so far we're not succeeding).
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