The customer service issue is huge. A person I have a lot of respect for is Tony Hsieh, who has grown Zappos.com into a huge success story by focusing primarily on one thing: customer service. They’re a “customer service company that happens to sell shoes” and their #1 core business value is to “Deliver WOW Through Service.” They’re so focused on making the customer happy, that they require each new employee (no matter what level) to attend a 5-week training course doing actual customer service work.

Their marketing approach drives business growth primarily through word of mouth (and a pretty huge SEO/M campaign). They do some traditional advertising but not much. They can get away with that business model because a large percentage of their profits are generated through return shopping (and because online retail clearly works). Making people happy works too.

If you ever have a question about something at zappos, try sending an email to their customer service, or picking up the phone and making a call. You’ll be surprised at how responsive they are. Tony’s made customer service an essential part of their company culture, and it’s been really effective.

Sounds like the same for the good folks at seatbeltbags.com — they clearly “get it” and it shows. Customer service is so important… it can erode or empower a business.

Thanks for posting this. While I’d recently subscribed to your blog, I had no idea that LED existed before and after reading your post I went to the LED site and read several of the threads. As a consultant to small and mid-size business clients for many years, the topics at LED are obviously quite relevant to my work. I really get a kick out of the fact that it’s an old-school email list and look forward to throwing my twenty five cents in.

On the subject of customer service, I need to be honest and admit that as an independent consultant I had a very difficult time keeping up with all my responsibilities including responding to client emails.

Yet whenever it came to anything to do with a problem, I have always done my best to drop whatever I’ve been doing and jump on getting resolution for my clients. I’ve always explained to new web clients how vital it is to be timely in responding to their customers needs.

Then again, maybe my attitude is a result of the fact that in the mid 80′s I worked for Citibank in telephone customer service, and they required that we attend four weeks of full time training and pass numerous tests before we were ever allowed to actually answer a phone with a live customer!