I was stuck in the
dentist office this morning, listening to my 65+ year old dentist rant about
customer service – or the lack thereof. Once he got his hands out my mouth I
said – “don’t waste your time with the 1-800 numbers or letters to the
president of the company anymore –tweet about.”

Wow. I guess I’m
really buying into this whole hype cycle. Me, who still checks books out of the
library? Reads the paper in the morning? Writes and mails paper-based letters?

Yep. I am a Luddite.
Except when it comes to bad service and crummy treatment
of customers by companies who should have the common sense to know that it
costs 10 times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.

So, in the spirit of practicing what I preach – I’m going to Tweet about how my cell phone
provider charged me – a loyal customer of 10+ years – $18 to upgrade to data
services. I’m anxious to see what happens. If it doesn’t work, there’s always a
hand-written letter to the president of the company. Or maybe a new cell phone
provider.

 - BySusan Bassett