I’m having problems with the following approach:
From ‘Reclaim Your Life: A Two-Week Challenge to Help You Regain Time’ by Stuart R. Levine
Consider the way new technologies come to market. The major software and electronics companies cut down on time and costs by putting products on the market before they’ve been completely debugged. Not only does this save the consumer money in the long run; consumer feedback teaches these companies more in a month than they’d discover through years of in-house testing. Sure, some users might grumble at flaws in the early models or releases. But by now, most consumers are aware of the practice and know to wait for the updated version.
This manifesto is available from ChangeThis.
My problem is the easy conclusion about on “some users that might grumble at flaws”. These early adopters are the ones that feed the companies with worthwhile feedback. In forums online. On ‘Company-X-sucks.com-websites’. At the callcenters etc. Based on this feedback the product/service is then updated. The calculating masses wait for this moment. But the engaged few that paid the big bucks are not ‘paid’ for their effort. In my opinion, they will eventually stop being this ‘helpful’ (read: exploited). Thus: no quick fixes, no updated products, no lower prices. And hence: no critical mass to make your profit on… Just a thought.
Satisfaction of call centre customers may be going down hill. While the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report 2006 highlighted that contact centres were putting call centre customers first by addressing service levels as a priority. The preliminary findings for the 2007 Benchmarking Report cast doubt on this commitment.
The 2007 report indicates that there has been a significant decrease in the levels of customer satisfaction, regardless of location, with the overall score down to 68.3% from 82% in the previous report.
The highest decrease in satisfaction was in Asia-Pacific where satisfaction fell from 84% to 61.9%, a staggering 22.1%. North America didn’t fare much better with customer satisfaction levels falling 21.1%. In Europe customer satisfaction levels fell 8.6%, with the lowest fall being recorded in Africa and Middle East with a 7.7% decrease in customer satisfaction. The same report also shows that a good 60% of all companies look at their contact/call centers as fee-burning activities. So: all word and no play? The truth is: you can actually learn from customers that make the call. And then acting upon that knowledge might save one or more pennies in other departments…
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