When I worked for a major cell phone company, I tried to make each interaction a positive one. And it was made harder by timed phone calls and a lack of time to follow up with customers. The result? My interactions turned out to be less than positive because I was pushed with quotas and stats instead of taking the time I needed to help customers. I can only hope they’ve changed in the last 8 years.

Good stuff. And highlighting how often big companies get it wrong – and it happens so much it boggles the mind. You would THINK that once you get to such high-level marketing from household names companies, that they’d have thought it through, and you’d be wrong more often than you’d think possible. And as I point out in my post, it’s just not at all difficult to get it right. Just takes a little forethought, which many companies are too busy to get around to – and another customer is lost, or at least alienated.

In the great book published years ago, “Service America,” they talk about “Moments of Truth” you have with your customers. Moments when the customer interacts either directly with your company through a representative or through your web site, written materials, etc. And in that moment, you have the opportunity to either further cement a fundamentally good relationship with that customer, or drive them closer to embracing a competitor. And while it’s just not that hard to get it right, so many companies get it wrong.

PB