Economic woes force reassessment of customer service December 01, 2009, by Peter Mirus in Other
The poor economy has prompted many companies to reevaluate their customer focus. In some cases, companies have had to reassess what customer service means to both themselves and to their customers.
On hearing this news, the customer's knee-jerk response might be: "Why weren't those idiotic companies providing great customer service to begin with?" In some cases this is a reasonable complaint.
However, it is also important to consider that the company may simply be responding to the consumer's changing evaluation criteria. In the current economy, consumers are more clearly focused on value for the dollar--which might represent itself in various ways. Companies are investing more in polling and other forms of customer research as a way of learning about how changing priorities affect purchasing decisions.
Economic woes have imparted many difficult lessons, but that is not to say that many of these lessons aren't good for us. Companies that learn to value the customer more dearly, even if this learning experience is forced upon them, will be better off in the long run--as will be the customer.
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