Why Service Stinks

In the spirit of unearthing traditional knowledge about customer experience that is applicable to the new medium, I've recently read T. Scott Gross's Why Service Stinks, which examines common causes of customer service failures in brick-and-mortar retailing, focused primarily on the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry, though it does stray into other areas of retailing as well.

While the book is primarily directed to front-line retail managers, many of the notions are applicable to the electronic channel ... though it would require a change in attitude on the part of Web storefront operators who must (and should) shift from the mental model of "enhancing" what is essentially a computer interface to their inventory and ordering systems to more of a comprehensive approach in which delivering an appropriate customer experience is foundational.

If you consider the experience of shopping on the Web, and ask yourself how you would feel if an in-store experience followed the same pattern, took the same tone, and put you through the same processes, you will quickly recognize a number of areas in which the online experience is failing, miserably, to deliver the same level of customer satisfaction (and earn the same level of customer loyalty) as meatspace retailers.

If you consider the communications you receive from retailers via e-mail and the myriad of social media, and ask yourself how you would feel if a clerk in a physical store delivered the same information, in the same tone, you will quickly recognize the reason that you feel more manipulated, alienated, and patronized by the Web-based brands that reach out to you with pretenses of wanting to serve your needs and earn your trust.

Granted: not all of the elements of the B&M retail experience are applicable to the online channel - and not all of them would be helpful or even welcome by the online shopper - but many of them are applicable, and should be applied, to improve the user experience in the online channel.