Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

CUSTOMER SERVICE LIVES IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

“This call may be monitored to help improve customer service.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I can tell you that as far as I’m concerned, it’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. For starters, why may and not will? Why take a chance on service and inject randomness or serendipity into the picture? I get why I’m being informed of this (corporations aren’t exactly sponsors of the Patriot Act) for litigious reasons; or perhaps it’s more for the customer-service representative than for my benefit, meant to deter them from (further) disappointing me.

Either way, I have a standard comeback now for these occasions. I inform the customer-service agent that I, too, “may” choose to record the conversation for my own purposes. This is often where they flip out and tell me it’s not possible, they don’t feel comfortable, or it’s not allowed. Sometimes they’ll even put down the phone. Guilty consciences, indeed.

Whether you like it or not, bad service will find its way to the public domain. So why delay the inevitable? Or why avoid it?

Bottom line: Mess with your customer, and they’ll let everyone they possibly can know about it. Or as author Pete Blackshaw puts it in his book, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.

You can hear my podcast conversation with Pete on www.flipthefunnelnow.com . Just click on “enhanced content.”

I don’t know about you, but being exposed in the public domain is pretty ...