How To Get Better Customer Service Staff: Don’t Pay Them
By Anna Johnson on May 1st, 2009The New York Times reports on an interesting phenomenon that’s been occurring over the last few years: the emergence of unpaid ‘customer service’ people who voluntarily help companies large and small.
Evidently, ‘lead users’ or ‘super users’ delight in helping fellow customers and do so to genuinely help others get the most out of a given product or service, as well as for peer recognition.
Many of us are familiar with super users – some of us may even be super users. They’re the discussion board contributors (who may or may not be moderators) who go out of their way to provide thoughtful and helpful advice on company, product or service focused discussion boards.
They’re the software programmers who develop open source software for everyone to enjoy.
And they’re the enthusiasts in all kinds of other markets who start product or service enthusiast clubs and often contribute product improvement ideas to companies.
As marketers, we should all strive to build our own group of ‘super users’. They truly are the best kind of customer – and it seems, customer service person – you can have.
So too, these are also people who, if we don’t necessarily reward in a monetary sense, we should definitely look after.
Nothing shocks me more than when when companies take their best customers for granted and end up treating them badly… and nothing is likely to hurt such companies more than causing their best fans to become their worst enemies.
And yet, it happens all the time…
Source: Steve Lohr, “Customer Service? Ask a Volunteer,” The New York Times, April 25, 2009
