However, we've stumbled upon a couple of articles that don't so much seek to dispel that notion, just to put it into some sort of context. The arguments are actually worth thinking about as the worst thing we can ever do is stop challenging the status quo. Then where would we be, eh?
First Jeremy Shoemaker's view (specifically related to online retail). You'll note from Jeremy's post that he argues from a purely economic perspective. The under-pinning argument (although he does not spell it out) is that there always comes a point at which more effort spent on customer care related policies does not result in more sales or revenue. The added effort is not cost effective. And, of course, he is absolutely right. This post attracted a bit of comment on "the customer is always ..." and you'll note we've added our ten cents. Ultimately the trick with this strategy is knowing where this tipping point is, and this relies on excellent management information and market intelligence, get this wrong, and you get it badly wrong
To operate in this way you are reliant on a pretty robust product or service, meaning that a problem is such an uncommon event that it does not need any additional organisational "after care" processes to compensate for functional failings. It would be an exceptionally risky strategy for a start-up operation as, with the paint still wet on products and processes, teething problems could be expected. In this case a few poor on line reviews could cast the start-up venture adrift in the ocean before it even gets started. So we cannot consider Jeremy's view as an absolute truth, but it could hold merit in certain circumstances. It is interesting to note that even Jeremy limits his assertion to "on line retail", which is notoriously non-experiential. It would be hard to envisage a cross-over of this policy to a largely experiential service delivery operation, like, say, veterinary services, or air travel
Next up, here's a similarly themed piece on "isixsigma". There's a nice little graph within the post that they use to demonstrate a point. That point is that these days mere "satisfaction" might not get you a great deal of credit in the future. It's only when we start going beyond "satisfaction" that we start getting all those word of mouth referrals that deliver the step change. To an extent it supports Jeremy Shoemaker's argument that to sell, satisfy, and move on may be the most economical way to run the commercial enterprise, and any additional "add ons" may not actually be worth the added effort and expense. Isixsigma drops well short of Jeremy's quite forthright view that customer service is a waste of time and effort, however, as they do seem to indicate that a policy that actually delivers "delight" (whatever that is) might deliver the economic payback we seek
It's all good though, this sort of debate. We all need to keep thinking about things, challenging things, even our sacred cows. After all there are few absolute truths, but there is this one:
Things change
... and failing to be alert enough to spot when that is and how we need to react is the fatal weakness. Agility is the new customer satisfaction maybe?
