Business - Written by Komail Mithani on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 15:39 - 3 Comments
A New Age in Customer Service
A few days ago, an article written in the Boston.com business column told a story about Comcast responding to a complaint by C.C. Chapman about his service. While watching his HDTV, the reception starting becoming very poor so Chapman quickly started expressing his anger on Twitter and “within 24 hours, a technician was at Chapman’s house in Milford to fix the problem.”
“Chapman’s experience is one example of the ways customer service is changing in an age when a single disgruntled consumer with a broadband connection can ignite a crisis,” from Carolyn Y. Johnson, the author of the article.
The article shows the power of ordinary people fighting against large corporations. For fun, in Google, I searched “Comcast complaints” and found over 1,870 listings and without quotations around the phrase Google brings up over a million listings.
“Comcast’s customer service was rated “poor” by 30% of respondents” and it had a strong hit after this video, which showed a Comcast technician sleeping on a customer’s couch. It was viewed over 1.2 million times with over 700 comments. Also, a website named ComcastmustDie.com was created for users to tell their stories of their experience and grievances with Comcast.
It seems like Comcast finally got the message. With the emergence of Web 2.0 ordinary people can have their voice heard and create a terror of a public relations problem for companies. “Listening and acting upon what [customers] are hearing and being very proactive is different than waiting for a customer to pick up the phone and call us. We can nip it in the bud,” said Karen Hartzell, division vice president of customer care for Comcast’s NorthCentral division.
In the new business environment, companies need to implement a team of individuals to help combat the conversations about their company. By combat, I am not referring to a retaliation, but providing a solution to the problem. Working with customers to generate a satisfying customer experience is essential to thriving in business today. Customer service is just one of the departments shifted by Wikinomics.
I’m interesting to hearing your thoughts on customer service. Is their a company that you will absolutely never use because of their horrible customer service, or is their a certain company that has a level of customer service that brings you back? It may or may not have to deal with Comcast, but please share.
3 Comments
Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 To The Rescue
Carrie T
I am one of those people that had horrible customer service with comcast. I will never use that company again! It is sad that some companies don’t understand how important it is to treat their customers well. I saw an interview with Rich Hanks the president of a company called mindshare. This company seems to know what is important when it comes to customer service. You should check it out.
steph
GOOD Customer service is so important! You need it to get the customers saticfaction and more importantly you need it to get the customer loyalty. I recenlty have come across a great and very informational website called Mindshare. I loved it and found it to be very helpful.
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[...] word out about a certain issue or topic that needs exposure. My colleague Komail Mithani wrote an entry earlier this week on how Web 2.0 enables people to have their voices heard in regards to customer service [...]