In tightening markets, if you can’t (perhaps shouldn’t) compete on price, you can still (and certainly should) compete on service.

Pete Blackshaw — executive vice president of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services and author of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000 — points to low-hanging fruit in an AdAge piece called Marketers Love Conversation Unless the Consumer Starts It (11 August, 2008):

If the consumer voice is so important these days, why are brand feedback, or “contact us,” forms so get-out-of-my-face unfriendly?

I dare you to find a feedback form that winks even a quasi-friendly smile. And if you find one that allows consumers to truly communicate in their native voices — complete with links, photos, audio clips or videos — I’ll eat my just-published book.

How about it? How important are your customers really?

• Do you employ a ‘contact us’ web form or email?
• Have you taken it on a test drive?
• How easy is it to find?
• How easy is it to use?
• Was the language shaped by someone who thinks (please don’t take offense) like an engineer, or someone who thinks like a brand marketer?
• Who responds to feedback? What is that person (or group) empowered to do in an effort to satisfy complaints?
• What, if anything, would change if the motto of your feedback team were drawn from James 1:19: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…”