The phrase “spontaneous combustion” always brings to mind the wonderment of grade school science or the untimely demise of the drummers in the fictitious British rock band Spinal Tap, who spontanously burst into flame.
But I’m talking about a different kind of spontaneous combustion: Customers forming ad-hoc alliances because they are mad as hell about marketing practices and they’re not going to take it anymore.
An excellent illustration is gethuman.com, a Web site whose stated goal is, “to improve the quality of customer service and phone support in the US. This free Web site is run by volunteers and is powered by over one million consumers who demand high quality phone support from the companies that they use.”
They achieve this goal by compiling a database of customer-generated instructions on how to bypass auto attendants and phone menus, and get to a human for 365 well-known companies. And the list is growing every day.
There are also tips on how to find a company’s 1-800 number and how to get to a human once you do. My favorite tip is to select the option for Spanish, because you’re more likely to get to a bilingual human than an English-only CSR.
This is an example of our customers coming together spontaneously because of dissatisfaction. Is this a brush fire? Or is it a burning platform? What do you think?
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