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The following post is submitted by a Bloggin-Ads author, Luis Sandoval Jr. of Daily Slackr.

The Power of A Blog In The Customer Service Industry..

Everyday, whether it’s virtual or face to face, we experience the law of supply and demand, we the customer needing something from a provider. Whether we continue to use the same provider, and our happiness with an experience is what we call customer service.

Customer service can be the downfall of even the mightiest of giants. How we are treated, respected, and ultimately served can effect the profits, customer base, and image of said provider both short term and long term. Some companies have invested millions of dollars in training and support to give their employees the right training to provide top tier customer service; meanwhile other companies have invested millions of dollars in attempting to reverse their image due to disastrous customer service.

Customer Service Stats

According to Accuconference:

• 6 in 10 customers are upset with their most recent customer service experience
• 81% of consumers who feel they’ve been treated badly say they’ll purchase from a competitor next time
• 27% of people who received “average” treatment say they’ll buy again from the same company

These are staggering but truthful numbers. Think of the last time you received horrible customer service, have you gone back lately to give them your money?

For companies dealing with automated call centers these are their numbers according to International Customer Management Institute:

• Phone interactions still dominate: 73% of contact center interactions take place via phone; 24% take place via email; and 4% via chat.
• Consumers who reach an automated system, rather than a live person, say they will do less business with the company.
• 22% of consumers who had to repeat information after being transferred from an automated system to an agent will do less business with the company.
• One in seven consumers report the automated system did not give the option to speak with an agent.

Look at that last bullet, a company that does not even give the option of talking to another human being. This type of customer service disgusts me.

Where does the power of blogging come into play?

Blogging for Change

We live in a more connected world, society has access to tools that 15, 10, and even 5 years ago that did not exist. We are the media, we have the ability to report, read, and investigate news because social networks and social media has taken down previous barriers that kept us from knowing the truth.

As such, bloggers and video-bloggers are now making sure their voice is heard and you know what? People are listening.

Let’s take two simple blogging examples for this article. The first I want to look at is The Consumerist.

For those that don’t know The Consumerist is one in your face, boot to the @ss, send your butt flying out the door site that really supports the consumers. I don’t know of any site that is so heavily supported by its community that it has literally forced corporate giants to change their way of handling customers. Everyone from computer companies, airlines, car rentals, and even restaurants.

The Consumerist is unique because it has a moral and responsible duty to investigate all claims given to them by customers. Never does it wantonly post gripes and complaints without digging deeper to make sure a case for argument truly exists. When it does have some ground to stand on, watch out!

Having captured the eyes of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of readers, businesses know that their name is mud if they ever hit the pages of The Consumerist, and customers know that this site elicits change. In other words, great customer service.

The second tool that has had a massive impact on relaying information to large masses of people very quickly would be Twitter. Now you can insert any massively followed micro-blogging app (friendfeed, plurk, tumblr, etc.). For this instance I will be using Twitter as the example.

I have seen a ripple effect from one unhappy customer with Microsoft become the bane of that company’s existence and in turn get exactly what they wanted the first time around. No magic, no extortion tactics, and no animals were hurt in the process of the demand, just an unhappy customer venting their frustrations.

You may say to yourself, “I only have 25 followers, if I gripe to them, how does that make a change.” It’s a trickle down effect. Let’s say you are very good friend with those 25 people and you complain about horrible customer service from a business and how you were completely wronged. Let’s now say just half of those 25 people share that same new with each of their 25 contacts, and so on. You see how the word spread exponentially.

Now take a person who has 100 contacts, or 1,000 contacts, or the power users that have five and six digit followers. The message spreads, negative feedback creates a PR nightmare, and people will listen and share.

The Power of The Written Word

Never forget the power you wield as a blogger. The written word has a history of toppling governments, changing whole countries, empowering the weak, eliciting the strongest of our emotions; the overall theme in all this, is that words have the power to change.

Share your experiences both good and bad. This post only focused on the side of bad customer service, but all of the above can be just as true for positive customer service and happiness with a product or business. Never settle for being treated less like a person, or being disrespected by any business. Make your voice heard, utilize the tools that are available and broadcast yourself.

In your experiences, whether you are brand new to the business or a seasoned vet, have your personal writings, petitions, blogs, reports even brought about change? If so share them with us.