An awful lot of people who have obtuse theories about customer care could learn a lot by just reading this piece, and paying attention Amazon's Jeff Bezos:

“They care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast,” he said. “And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”

Lots of executives claim they are interested in win-win, but they actually play for win-lose. If you have a complex set of rules for "customer care", you almost certainly don't get it. What you ought to have is a set of guidelines - and have front line service/support people empowered to do the right thing. If they have to answer every query with "I don't know, I'll have to check with my manager" - then you have a problem.

Technorati Tags: customer care