At what point do you decide to make your company customer centric? Is it when your sales drop? When people write and complain that your service stinks? Or when your reputation as a ‘difficult company to deal with’ preceeds you?
The answer, it would seem for some companies, is none of the above. From personal experience, the last three purchases I have made left me amazed that organisations operate with such contempt. I won’t bore you with a rant of detail, but in this day and age, I’m shocked at how some organisations can show a blatant disregard; blaming their inadequacies on credit crunch, strong competition, or the Internet in an attempt to justify a customers experience being well below par.
It would also seem that any efforts in complaining to change this culture of poor service are futile. Type ‘shoddy service + UK’ into any search engine and you will find that this culture of lame service is a filthy layer stretching across every industry.
It’s time for change! We are a different world to that of shoving children up chimneys, so let’s bring service out of the dark ages and all benefit from a more customer-focused offering. In the first instance, I call for a traffic-light system to be put in place, not dissimilar to that used by the food industry. Rated by one of three colours, customers can instantly recognise what level of service they can expect and set their expectations accordingly. Having a big red dot on your shop window may just be the impetus required for retailers to take action to improve their service offerings. Yes I’m talking to you Habitat, Boots and British Airways.
