George Parker: Service Is As Service Does

A piece in this week’s AdWeek, titled “Are You Being Served – Customer service counts as much as ever,” made me do a Homer Simpson and say “Duh!” That was before swigging my next can of Duffs. I mean isn’t that a rather obvious statement? Then I started to think about all the hoopla we continually read about how brands need to jump on the social networking bandwagon by engaging in conversations, creating a dialogue, friending, tweeting and generally becoming a BFF, Homie, Bud, wanker, or whatever with existing and potential customers. But shouldn’t you be thinking about what those conversations might be?

Let’s backtrack to a time before most of you were born. There used to be a department store by the name of Nordstrom’s, OK, there still is. The Nordstrom Employee Handbook consists of one sheet of paper with 75 words on it. Ten of them say… “Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service.” It then goes on to say “Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.” Beautiful! It reminds me of the time a guy walks into Nordstrom and plunks two car tires on the counter, tells the sales assistant he isn’t happy with them and would like his money back. The assistant doesn’t point out that Nordstrom doesn’t sell auto tires, she simply asks him how much he paid for them, then hands over the cash, no questions asked. Of course, it’s one of those urban legends that never happened… But the point is, based on the store’s reputation, you could believe it might.

Perhaps the biggest single trap many companies fall into is an unintentional (sometimes, it’s intentional) arrogance when dealing with customer complaints. Funnily enough this has happened to me with both Apple and Microsoft. With Apple the impression is that I should feel honored to have been smart enough to buy Apple, and if something isn’t satisfactory, I should buy another (Remember the original iPod battery?) Or, if I paid too much, I’ll get a coupon for a few dollars that I have to spend on more Apple shit. But when it comes to Microsoft, if you have a complaint, they basically tell you to fuck off.

The gold standard for service is Amazon – No Piers, I promise, no more Kindle stories! Because Amazon is Jeff Bezos, pure and simple. This is a guy who had the balls to insist that investors should realize the company would not make a profit for fucking years. Instead, it would spend the first eight years or so, building a huge customer base that was intensely loyal, based on their one hundred percent satisfactory experiences with the company. It lost a shitload of money for a very long time. The analyst bozos on Wall Street screamed for the board of directors to remove him. Now, of course, they claim he’s a genius.

Anyway, the point of this week’s rant is that simply instituting a “social networking strategy” via FaceBook, Twitter or whatever the flavor du jour is, won’t guarantee customer loyalty, let alone chart busting sales. It’s all about attitude. Something that has to start at the top and be demonstrated at all levels of the company.

Don’t fucking “friend” me. Make me want to be your friend.

George Parker is a guest columnist for psfk.com. He is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com, which is without doubt, one of the most foul and annoying, piss & vinegar ad blogs on the planet. He is the author of MadScam and his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, which is currently setting the ether ablaze (and which you can order now on Amazon). He will continue to relentlessly promote the crap out of it until you are forced to stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles.