The impact is that the key battleground for customer loyalty is now complaints. If consumers at best are happy to self-manage and at worst are discouraged from contacting, then when a real issue arises, it becomes the only point after purchase that a customer really has to engage with a business.
We value our relationships, and in the back of our minds the thought of reciprocity may be bouncing around (“Maybe I’ll have to ask this person for something in the future…”) but we can’t please everyone all the time.
Tim Pownall on behalf of the PACIS project in faith-based diplomacy accepted the 2011 Peacemaker Award given each year by the Association for Conflict Resolution. The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is an organization committed to awareness of conflict resolution in the public.