Music for Profit

My most notorious moment during my stint with Poland’s Idol was getting tackled by a big-boned teenage girl who wanted a kiss, outside of a big record store.

I recall it now because I was trying to think of all the times I felt something other than devotion and gratitude toward fans of my art. I was trying to put myself into the mindset of a famous musician who will go nameless, who hid from the world in his dressing room to the detriment of his relationship with his fans.

It took place at a popular US music festival, and he was very late to the stage. He should have started performing an hour ago. Fortunately for the fans, someone from the venue went to see Mr. Late in his hotel room, very apologetic and looking to do whatever was necessary to make the artist happy.

Entertainers and companies both have love/hate relationships with those who sustain them – customers. I think that sometimes performing artists forget that while they may continue to create their art no matter what, the people that enable them to do it are the fans, the customers. The same goes for customers.

Companies are the same way – more than one CEO has confided in me a dislike for customers. Maybe not all, but most of them. Such resentment is a very dangerous way of doing business in any industry.

Have you ever been on the receiving end of really bad customer service?

I think we’ve all had that experience where the attention and care that a business has for you is just pathetic. It makes you want to tell all of your friends, and family, and Twitter followers never to consort with them again.

Now think about the opposite. Have you ever had the most amazing experience in the world from a business or service, and thought, wow they GET me? Again you tell all of your friends, family, and Twitter followers.

I have definitely experienced both scenarios more than once, and told everyone about it. The business that couldn’t care less about me as a customer got burned, and for the business that went above and beyond to take care of me, I was free advertising.

Unfortunately, I have worked for more than one business in my life that actively disregarded its customers, and I was amazed at the measures customers took to hurt the business. Despite having a truly unique and useful product, that business never achieved the success they felt their product had deserved because of this one failing. Fortunately, I’ve also been involved in a business or two that believed that NOTHING was more important than customer service. What resulted is a very loyal and committed following of customers. Those customers would go through great lengths to help us out, and help out our product.

Between the two businesses mentioned above, which would you rather associate yourself with?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.