Hey did you notice? The recession is over!!!!!
We tried to buy a Bosch dish washer. That was actually difficult. We went to the local Loews but there was no sales clerk, the answer: “he is out for lunch can you come back in an hour”. We couldn’t and went to a local store but they were too busy with running their business. We started to find online stores but that was way too complicated to order a dish washer. We finally ended up with Abt Chicago (we live in California). I spare all the rest of the story – but nobody seemed to be interested in selling a dish washer. So we will get the order to Abt in Chicago.
CUT
We are working on a survey to research social media reporting tools. We selected 25 out of over 100. Trying to get in touch with some sales people was difficult. Trying to get a discussion CEO to CEO was almost impossible. We will share our findings with the rest of the industry but some of the companies are just not interested. In one case I tried to connect through their PR department. But I had to answer some questions despite the fact that those questions were already answered in the letter I sent. Oh well.
CUT
Now since we found the dish washer, we are looking for a plumber – Wow they are all busy and can’t help right now. It took 5 calls to get to a plumber who actually has time to work.
CUT
We tried to do more business with Paypal but had to provide some more information – most certainly no problem. But that didn’t work out online – after an endless journey through phone systems and exactly 15 steps: we still haven’t resolved the issue. It looks like we have to find another service. But I guess in the global business hype we have to get in line somewhere else.
CUT
I guess I stop here. But I have way more examples of the above, all evidence that the recession must be over.
Do you also experience the fact that the recession is over?
I would assume that your anecdotes are meant to show the reader that because no one is interested either in selling you something or the customer service that should accompany the purchasing process (thus why you can’t get what you want when you want it where you want it), companies must be so swamped with business that they don’t need yours – thus the economy is great.
Hmmm.
Although I’ve had many of the experiences of which you speak, I also had them when the economy was humming along.
As response to your anecdotal evidence, I could provide similar anectodal reasons as to why the situations you describe occured – with none of the reasons necessarily related to the larger economy. I can also think of several reasons that would be related to the economy (i.e. – less inventory because there are fewer buyers because there is less expendable income because of higher unemployment or underemployment because the economy is bad…or fewer workers because companies are streamlining operations to run leaner because there are fewer buyers, etc etc).
I would say that your situations perhaps highlight an issue that the US has been suffering for sometime: lackluster customer focus. This can definitely be exaggerated in an economic downturn, as bad habits such as lackluster customer service are hard to break even in the worst of economic times when customer service could mean the difference between staying in business or going under.
I have to note that such examples hardly point to the end of the recession and even with your pertinent point regarding sales/customer service, people who are suffering the effects of the very real recession might not take your headline/comments very well…the headline, even tongue in cheek, seems a bit much.
That said, I agree with the underlying sentiment of your post: that this is definitely a great time for companies to refocus on customers and retool the customer experience. How that happens is changing and will continue to change as social media goes mainstream corporate in ways we have only begun to see. More companies would benefit from understanding how social media communities impact the customer experience and customer loyalty to the brand–and now is a great time to gain that understanding.
Hi Axel
What a coincidence. It happened to me too. So it must be true.
Or maybe it is the ‘curse of action’; where any important event, usually an external one, galvanises staff into focussing on it to the detriment of everything else. Including serving the customers who ultimately pay their salaries.
I have seen the curse in action many times. When an important (but not always profitable) customer asks for an unusual order and the whole business grinds to a halt to deliver it. When you are in merger discussions and the whole management team forgets about anything outside the company and staff inside it too. And of course in the recession, when responding to the recession is more important than serving the few remaining customers who still want to buy something.
We live in a strange world and it is getting stranger by the minute.
Graham Hill
Customer-driven Innovator
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Seriously? That’s why you think it’s over? Sounds like just plain bad customer service to me. Or the fact that they can’t afford to hire more people to do customer service.
Which given today’s jobless numbers is probably the case. That and the fact that I personally know a fair number of jobless people myself having a hard time finding work.
-Hal
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