This arc started with a synchrony of events that Ron Bourque, a consultant and speaker in Windham, NH, and I experienced with email service providers deciding that trusted emailers were spammers for reasons beyond the ken of mortals.
Part 1 dealt with discovering who's spamming who, part 2 dealt with calling customer service for help. This entry wonders about customer psychology and what customers can do about customer non-service.
I've written that one of NextStage's research projects involves debranding. We've learned that debranding is based on a sense of betrayal. The customer trusts the company to treat them well, to respect them. Something happens and the customer's trust changes from trust they will be respected to trust they will not be respected. Trust still remains, it's just a trust you don't want to have because it's a trust that you'll be hurt by someone you trusted not to hurt you.
What can consumers do about this?
That is a fascinating question. It begs the question, "Why do people put up with bad behavior?" because this second question is really the root of the first. In work situations, if an employee misbehaves once we show compassion, thrice we show them the door.
We've all known couples that were long past being coupled yet remained yoked to each other for reasons only they understood. I remember equating these relationships to the Biblical line "Thou shalt not yoke the ox and the ass together". Yet these couples stay together, often in abusive situations, because, when asked, it's easier than going their separate ways.
Well...uh...I guess there you have it.
Yes, I understand that the current state of customer service often has more to do with financial constraints than actual desire to service their customers. For example, "How many customers will we lose through poor customer service?" is an actual part of the equation when companies are implementing customer service solutions. If that number is insignificant there's no reason to implement a different customer service solution.
(more to follow) Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- DeBranding, Again...
- Learning to Listen, Learning to See
- Not So Social Networks
- Usability Studies 101: Redesign Timing
- Use of Eye Images as Navigation and Action Cues on WebSites
- User Migration and Site ReDesign
- When Advertisements Crash
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