Influx

BBC Radio 4 has an excellent program dealing with the issue of customer service. It builds the story around the metaphors of heartbeat and blood pressure. It suggests companies should try to think about customer service as a success, only if it doesn’t raise their consumer’s heartbeat.

In the program, Patrick Barwise, Professor of Marketing at the London Business School, suggests that the problem lies with the emotional detachment of senior management from the real consumer experience. Barwise believes this happens because senior management’s experience of the customer, is informed only by employees, who usually lie to avoid discussing customer problems.

Other commentators discuss the issue of customer lifetime management, the problem of outsourcing and separating call centers from the business, the example of a US house-builder that is expanding into the life-services business and
Club Airways, a Swiss membership airline, who is on a mission is to take the stress out of flying.