I couldn’t resist posting a link to this story about a 75-year old woman in Virginia who provided some very direct feedback - using a hammer - to cable provider Comcast after encountering difficulties trying to switch her phone service.

What’s interesting is the number of comments posted on the story by frustrated Comcast customers - the main tone of these is that the lady in question has tapped a deep vein of frustration.

Organisations who provide such an apparently high level of poor service can enter a vicious cycle where adverse customer reaction breeds poor morale in front line staff (who were luckily not endangered by this action) which does not help the delivery of service. And so it goes.

Thanks to the excellent Church of the Customer blog for highlighting this one. They suggest that Comcast have such a dominant position in some areas that customer don’t feel they have a choice. I’ll explore the conditions that cause mediocre service in future posts.