“The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer.” Peter Drucker 

Those are 8 words I really do not  enjoy hearing from a machine, especially when I am not having the best of days. In this day and age when customer service is a deciding factor in whether a company is successful or not I am continually surprised by the lack of importance given to this function. This blog series was inspired by a nightmarish episode of customer support at one of the largest telco’s in the country. It took them approximately 30 hours to reconnect me with the world.

During this 30 hour period I went through a gamut of emotions ranging from diabolical anger, confusion, disappointment, curiosity, denial to euphoric happiness. I learnt about the intricacies of mammoth call centers, the lack of sufficient support systems, just how insignificant one complaint can be when you process thousands of such queries every hour and how destructive one such incident can be to a company’s reputation. (Lost Laptop = $54m , Bloggers reaction) The internet has transformed the voice of the customer and corporations must definitely factor this into their customer service strategy.

Over the course of this week I will be talking about how to put customer service into your startup strategy from the word go and other topics related to improving and focusing on the customer service department. We have to carefully balance technology with human element to ensure that customer issues are resolved promptly and efficiently. However contrary to common belief, that the customer is always right, this author & blogger has generated a lot of buzz promoting the fact that the customer is ‘not’ always right. What do you think?

What was the worst customer service experience you have been through? How do you think the company could have reacted differently to address your complaints? I look forward to hearing from all of you.