We used to shout at our TV sets, but no one on the other side could possibly hear us. Most of us have found ourselves shouting--or wanting to--because of a nearly universal sense of frustration that large corporations were doing everything the could not to listen to customers like us.
I've been reading the Church of the Customer blog by co-authors Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell for well over a year and find their views and passion for customer evangelism to be valuable. I sometimes envy the great stories they either find or amplify. The case of a customer so angry with T-Mobile to post this message on his or her back window is a sign of the frustration we all sometimes feel.
Now, I've heard very little bad about T-Mobile and when they were my carrier I liked their service but their signal just didn't work in my area. But don't you just want to know what this car owner went through before going through the car customization effort?
This is the power of word of mouth. At least two bloggers have now posted this photo. If you are about to make a decision on a new mobile carrier, you now have a data point of an extremely unhappy customer.
If T-Mobile blogged, this customer may have posted a comment there. The customer may have been irate, but I'll wager you the dialog would be less damaging than this photo will prove to be. People are more polite when they think you are listening. The blog is just the best current tool in letting customers offset rage and teaching a company where they need to improve if they wish to serve their community.
In the same post, Jackie and Ben mentioned Dell who earlier this year announced a $100 million plan to improve customer service, then acted commendably, in my opinion, a couple of week's back when the battery issue, er... exploded. These two announcements have moved me from a certified Dell hater to a cautious, slightly suspicious Dell watcher. In short, they are starting to turn me around. Their blog has evolved from corpspeak to not so bad and continues to unevenly improve.
All they need to really turn me around is to hear real users--perhaps people I know and trust--to tell me about good experiences they have personally had. Perhaps that day will come soon, perhaps not.
It may surprise you to know that I'm rooting for them.
