If you’ve recently watched TV, listened to the radio, or read the newspaper, you would think that we’re living in this ‘Golden Age’ of customer service.

Why?

Because every single advertisement that mentions customer service (in every industry) claims that they have the “great customer service.” Some companies take it a step further and claim that they have the “best customer service”.   Even the most notorious companies, known nation-wide as black holes of customer service, claim they are the best. You know who they are because when you see their ads on TV, you try, like me, to run your head through the television. 

All this is really confusing to me because the people that are paid to come up with these messages are extremely intelligent people. Some of them are the most successful business people in the world. How is it that they think a sparkly, self-praising commercial is going to fool anybody? The customer already knows what kind of job these companies do—-how in the world is a self-praising commercial or self-praising claim going to change the mind of a knowledgeable consumer?

Those most guilty of these nonsensical claims are the ones in the industries well-known for horrendous customer service. Look at the list below from Forbes:

Apart from ‘Government Offices’, the culprits on this list, the worst customer service providers are the biggest violators of the disconnect in advertising. Just go through the list and pick one. Pick a company in each industry and you can readily recall a media ad in direct conflict with the way they perform.

At least the ‘Government offices’ people are around to tell us how horrible their adversaries are.

All these companies, in all these industries, train employees. Most of them have Learning Management Systems which give employees a clear directive on what must be learned over time—most of which is relative to their role or job. These include online learning like Excel, the 7 Habits, Time-Management, and anything else the company feels is critical to the development of the employee.

Why is it that the same companies remain on lists like the MSN.com ‘Hall of Shame’?  Or the 24/7 Wall Street hall of shame?  The same ones . . . over and over and over.   And the same ones claiming, “The BEST customer service”. . . over and over and over.

Funny thing—they could probably get off those lists if they included customer service training in their LMS. Everybody trains employees. Some even take ‘continuing education’ like bankers and realtors and engineers. Even doctors (see list) actively read new articles in medical journals.

Time to start customer service training. What a service that would be to the team.