You will see that I have started using Twitter (look to the right side of the top page). In the era of fighting for attention (a stubbornly scarce resource), hitting the window of opportunity with valuable insight can seem like bullseyeing that ventilation shaft on the Death Star (”use the force, Luke.”). This is where I think Twitter fits.

My plan is to restrict my twits (?) to comments on customer service with, as advertised, a wide definition of “customer.” Some interactions create an opportunity to move the relationship needle in your favour, or hold it steady against a negative pull. I plan to call out excellence and shortcomings. Follow if you like; we will both see where it goes.

Longer discussions and stories (conceivably for those prepared to invest more attention) will stay on this blog. Things like this:

I dearly hope that business models that rely on high switching costs are on the wane. (See this article summary from HBR.) I currently have insurance relationships with two different Canadian banks (car and house); the renewal rates are weeks apart. Every year, I am reminded by each of the bundling discount that I could receive by increasing the number of products, but neither makes it easy for me to do anything but renew what I have… and I never remember until after automatic renewal notice! (Talk about scarce attention!)

Good for them for deriving value from my inability to keep track of the dates! The downside, I would argue, is that my home mortgage is currently with a third major back (in the current climate, this may not or may not be desireable business for a bank!). My experiences with small-ticket insurance items is such that I won’t entertain moving my business to either of the other two when the mortgage comes up for renewal (and that date is in my calendar!).

Perhaps the impossibility of maintaining customer equity when you have diversified products and an old-school model will drive more customer-centric approaches… but maybe not. Hey, they may not even miss me.

Tags: Tags: attention, Customer Service, HBR, swithching costs, twitter —

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