Questioning the Voice of the Customer
July 12, 2011
With search vendors embracing customer service and customer support, here’s an interesting insight into the niche: Steve McKee at Bloomberg Businessweek declares that “The Customer Isn’t Always Right.” Yeah, customers—who needs ‘em!
Actually, McKee does acknowledge that businesses should heed consumer voices much of the time. However, he insists that the reality of competing interests limits the value of that information:
As Adam Smith pointed out: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.’ The same is true of the people who purchase the meat, the beer, and the bread. If you ask customers to design the perfect product, they’ll rack up the features and ratchet down the price, then be thrilled to buy from you all the way through your ‘Going Out of Business’ sale.
Businesses must balance customer input with knowledge about their own needs. The sting of losing a few sales because your prices are too high is small compared to the importance of protecting your bottom line.
What’s becoming increasingly clear, search vendors who offer customer support solutions are helping companies which want to reduce their customer support costs. Helping the customer? Maybe that is a secondary or tertiary benefit?
Cynthia Murrell, July 12, 2011
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
