Am I Being Heard?

If you watch HBO's The Comeback - you've added "I don't need to SEE that" and "I need to know I'm being heard.  Am I being heard?" to your phrase portfolio.  (If you haven't seen the show - it's finished it's season, but you can see it on DVR or buy the DVD - it's worth it).

Am I being heard?  It's a good question. I just read Bob Regular's piece in Adbumb "Customer Service is Dead or Dying".  In it, he laments the fact that it's nearly impossible to get an email-back (no one is even bothering to ask for call-backs anymore).  He sites business situations where his company is trying to spend money and STILL can't get a return email.  He also sites situations like the recent Yahoo search problem in which the only correspondence users got from the company was a bulk posting to a web-site.  (If you have ever tried to contact Yahoo about a store or anything else, you know that it is IMPOSSIBLE - and same for Google).

His take is that it's the self-service pendulum swinging to far, and asks businesses to contemplate leaving some aspect of responsiveness in their systems. 

His point is very well-taken.  I thought it was just me. I know that when you are starting a new business, it takes time to get credibility and until it's earned, it's hard to get return mails / calls.  But - even when I am the trying to spend the money, my questions seems to float in a vacuum and never get picked up or addressed by potential vendors. 

And it's not just happening on my new business. Today my packaging company placed a significant order with a vendor (of 8 years) and we got a return fax that said "we are referring you to X co. our distributor, and here's their phone number".  Doesn't that seem ridiculuous?  How about a phone call or email with an explanation of why and give us a contact name so we don't just call the operator and start from scratch?   When did companies decide that working with customers is too much trouble? And are we all doing so well that we can't take the time to bother with sales relationships anymore? 

This is definitely a problem.  Remember.  Your customers and your vendors want to know that they are being heard.