A recent report from Jupiter Research concludes that Poor customer service online...could also hurt that merchant's off-line sales as well. It's amazing to me that this is news. But, for a lot of people it is. As with most business fads, the process (creating online entities) tends to overwhelm the value provided (enhancing the relationship with the customer). Hopefully we're getting past the fad stage now and will being to see firms using technology to actually create value.

I did find one item in the article to be news (if just that the study offers some empirical support to the idea): Consumers also want customer service staff that's privy to their entire order history - both online and off-line. In one sense, this makes a heckofalota sense. I mean, a big reason that a lot of people like Amazon.com is that they do recommend things based on what you've purchased in the past. I'd probably use Barnes & Noble online a lot more if they did this with my brick & morter purchases. Of course if Jupiter also asked "does it bother you if a company tracks everything you buy both online and in the store?" the response might be different.

How can a firm reconcile the service/privacy issues raised by the internet and bi technologies? Start by focusing on the customer (the person), not the technology...