Customer Service…. Where Are You?

In a number of articles I’ve read over the past few weeks, , including this interesting one in Business Week, we’re finding out that, at a time when companies should be doing everything in their power to protect and fight for their loyal customers, they aren’t!

A fascinating survey done by Accenture on the state of customer service exposes a huge gap between how companies perceive the customer service they provide, in comparison to how these companies’ customers experience that same service. Needless to say most businesses rate their own service more highly than their customers do. This is in the area of B2B customer service.

I was thinking about why this gap exists and why there is such a gap of perception. I came to the following conclusion: There is a disconnect between these companies’ intentions and their actual delivery. Most service companies’ management know that today they have to ‘talk the talk’  even to the point of self delusion. But when it comes to actually ‘walking’ i.e. dedicating the right amount of resources, human and capital, and taking a risk on innovation, they end up not really walking or  leaping or following through on their own expressed desires.
And because nothing is static – everything either gets better or gets worse… then things get worse and customers are the ones that experience the deterioration.

And customers, like elephants never forget.

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