As I struggle along trying to deal with Dell's lousy customer service - long call wait times, sending out the wrong part, automated customer service phone menus from hell, phone menus that just loop back on themselves, run arounds galore, and so on - I can't help but wonder what long-term costs a company like Dell incurs when it cuts corners on customer service. Here's an interesting take on the problem:
In the good old days, the customer service people were the company’s front lines. They not only were there to help a customer fix a problem, but to learn from customers’ experiences and to bring that learning back into the company to develop new or better products. We are amazed, over and over, as we have navigated the print marketplace for many years, as to the versatility of customers in both their ingenuity and in their use of our products in ways that we never dreamed they could/would be used. While customers may have a hard time defining next generations of equipment, what they are able to accomplish without our help, and what they wish to accomplish with our help, typically drives the next generations of company products.
We are concerned that with the reduce-costs-any-way-you-can barrier between customers/users and their customer service helpers, that this age old learning opportunity will no longer be available to the designers of a company’s products. If this is the case, then we will have lost a vital connection to our customer bases in the name of reduced cost.
The article's also got some good points about the long-term costs associated with outsourcing and off-shoring customer service.