Are we being served yet?

As an assistant editor of this magazine, I spend much of my time trying to contact product manufacturers or their representatives for different bits of information. I e-mail a company with a request for a photo or product price, and within seconds I have it.

As we move at warp speed into the 21st century, customer service remains at a standstill. Can we bring service up to speed? That's in a perfect world. The reality is quite another story. I can't count the times I've gone to a company's Web site and submitted a form or sent an e-mail, and received no response. Equally annoying, as well as time consuming, is being trapped in the unforgiving web of an automated phone system, where pressing the wrong button either cuts you off or knocks you into a maze full of unwanted options. These are not, in many cases, the failings of technology. The fact is that as communication technology soars, customer service suffers. One of the more frustrating parts of my job is when I find what appears to be a valid e-mail address on a company's Web site. I send off an e-mail using the link provided, and in a matter of minutes I receive a reply stating, “Undeliverable Mail,” “Delivery Failure,” or “Mail System Error.” There's no excuse for this. If a company has a Web site with e-mail addresses, those addresses should be updated regularly. The same goes for phone and fax numbers. Nevertheless, I can expect between 20 and 30 invalid e-mail address bounces as I gather information each month for our Source Lists. I suppose this poor communication is a carryover from our personal lives. It's so easy to screen calls, turn off the fax machine, delete an e-mail, or let the machine pick up a call. When these practices creep into business, though, it is bad news. Today we have the ability to communicate at breakneck speeds with people on opposite sides of the planet. The possibilities to improve communications are exciting and invigorating and should be embraced especially by those who manufacture electronic components. But some companies don't even put contact information on their sites.

Short of one-on-one contact, customer service has never been great. Ten or 15 years ago, when most interactions took place via telephone, the chances of actually connecting with someone who wanted to and actually could help were slim. But just as we've improved the means of communication, we must improve the way we do it.

Ralph Raiola, Assistant Editor