by Miriam Garvi
The other day my landlord company sent me and every other tenant the annual 10-page survey on customer satisfaction. I sighed as I opened the thick envelope, thinking about how readily companies will make use of the customer’s time and how seldom this seems to lead to any improvements.
Well, besides your typical customer satisfaction survey, this company wanted to know our housing wish list…
«How do you want to live?» This question should really be rephrased into «What are you willing to pay for?» to reflect its true meaning. A display of quasi-concern that is used like a thermometer in order to determine which future course of action is chargeable on the customer’s account.
When business is reduced to sterile transactions, then ‘customer care’ has little to do with taking pride in providing a product or service that is good, useful, purposeful for the client. Instead it takes on the meaning of effectuating what will directly impact bottom line.
So many qualities are lost in a visionless, penny-counting world. Is this a price we are willing to pay?