A short while back we asked people to tell us about examples of ¬†bad service and which companies had disappointed them the most . There was no shortage of stories. This led me to have a fascinating discussion with Alex Harris who recently posted an article entitled “Hey Volvo, Customer Service the heartbeat of Reputation” on her blog The Reputation Report. I like Alex, she tells it how it is. Here is a brief summary of her thoughts…

Every sale means a customer, and every customer represents future sales of one hundred times the original due to their own continued purchases and referrals. With every sale, the importance of customer service increases. With every sale, reputational risk increases. Customer service is central to a company’s reputation. Reputation management is not about public relations or column inches in newspapers. Reputation is created at and affected by every touch point of the organisation; it is about business processes, ethics, corporate social responsibility, corporate culture, public image risk, and leadership. It is about how you treat people through the sales process and most importantly, after the sale has been achieved. The quality of contact and messages conveyed before, throughout and beyond the buying process are critical. What messages are you sending? Are you delivering them consistently?

And most importantly, walk it before you talk it. An inconsistency between advertising and reality will do more damage to a company’s reputation faster than any other issue because it will be seen as false and misleading. Need an example of what not to do? Volvo.

For a company that leads its sales campaign with safety, one would expect a swift replacement of a faulty product to be an essential response. It clearly isn‚Äôt…