Many peoples prior experiences with manufacturers have taught them that manufacturers frequently aren’t helpful when it comes to solving problems: assisted support takes too long, makes you wait, is staffed by someone halfway around the world who doesn’t speak your language well, makes you redo the steps you already did, and doesn’t have the expertise to solve the problem.
And unassisted support is poorly written, as though by someone who isn’t even human, solves only general problems for general solutions but not the specific problems that real-world people encounter, and just isn’t helpful.
In response to this, customers frequently turn first to Google to find help for their problems. Google is fast and easy to find the top hits relevant to their problems. They don’t care where the help comes from – in fact they trust help from a stranger on the internet more than they trust help from the manufacturer.
The stranger has no inherent agenda, while the manufacturer has many agendas that run counter to the interest of the customer: to keep support costs low, to sell the customer more products, to keep embarrassing problems from leaking out.
The stranger proves his worth simply by sharing information when there is no gain back to him by doing so.
5 comments:
I am not sure this is true...because some people post things on the internet because the do have an agenda. And that agenda seems to be more often than not, "I was screwed by this company!" At least those are the kinds of posts that I have noticed. This is not to say that there aren't people out there talking about their good experiences, too but I am much less likely to notice them.
When an individual posts, usually their agenda is obvious or explicit: "I was screwed and I'm going to tell the world about it" has an agenda, but the motivation is not hidden.
I think where people get concerned is where the implied agenda is different than the actual agenda.
Information about a product has an implied purpose: to inform the reader about the product in a way that allows them to make an accurate purchasing decision. (I would define an accurate purchasing decision as once in which the purchaser ends up with the product that is truly best for them.)
Similarly, information about resolving a problems with a product has an implied purpose: to get the problem solved.
But in both cases, a manufacturer of a product has motivations other than these implied agendas. In the case of product information, their motivation is to sell products, so the real agenda is to manipulate the prospective buyer into buying that specific product by making that product sound great - better than all other products. In the case of support information, the manufacturer may have a motivation to avoid lawsuits, so the real agenda may be to disclose only that information which doesn't reflect badly on the manufacturer.
I think it's these cases, where the agenda implied by the context differs from the actual agenda where people get turned off by traditional one way information sharing. They turn to their peers to get information that has a clear agenda, whether it is to present an unbiased opinion, or to represent the truth of a situation that happened ("i was screwed!"). In the latter case, then the combined experiences of many people add up to give a balanced perspective.
Your comment does make me wonder. Since there does appear to be more posts about negative experiences, is that because: people have more negative experiences than positives one; the negative experiences are more sensational and get shared more widely than positive ones through word of mouth; or because individually we simply notice the negative ones more than the positive?
Will, concerning your last paragraph....
I think that the average consumer is unlikely to note or recognize the varying degrees of 'good' customer service until it passes their internal threshold into 'Outstanding' customer service.
Much of this, IMHO, is due to the '....and I want it NOW!' center-of-the-universe attitude that so many people take. They imagine that anything above a basic level of customer service isn't anything more than their due.
When that's the case, they are certainly not going to make a big fuss about 'good' or even what should be considered 'GREAT' customer service. And if they are not making a fuss about it, they are not going to blog about it. When was the last time you thanked the checker in the grocery store for being merely efficient?
I believe that customer service is failing in many companies. Although people may have a lot to complain about, it is important to note that lots of people are listening. I saw an interesting article called "Customer Service Hall of Shame" that was published by a company called Mindshare. This company is all about promoting better customer service, something I think we would all appreciate.
It is very sad that most of what was said about manufactures customer service is very true, and i'm sure we've all had our own experiences with bad customer service on the phone. To be able to turn to the internet for better advice is sad but that's what it's coming down to. I've recently discovered an amazing website Mindshare that the main focus is about customer service. It would be helpful for those companies to check it!!!
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