Customer service is generally something businesses and organizations provide their customers and supporters as a way to solve problems, maintain a high standard and be responsive. Some organizations use their degree of customer service as a differentiation with other similar organizations.
In a free market, organizations are free to provide as much or as little customer service as they like. But is a customer problem something the free market can ignore at will? Technically, the answer is yes. After all, if a company ignores or refuses to deal with a problem, the customers can take their business elsewhere, and the company will then be “punished” by the free market. But this is free market theory, and in practice, we believe that when we buy a service or a product, and there is a problem, there is a LEGAL obligation for the company/organization to rectify the situation.
In fact, this legal obligation may be spelled out in a sales contract. But it is not always. This is where regulators would like to step in. We are seeing this more and more with the airline industry. With the rise in add-on fees and unclear fares, the government wants to make things easier for passengers to understand.
According to this blog post on Forbes.com, the government should NOT be involved in regulating airline customer service. The writer, Allen Howell, believes the free market will take care of this. As he writes:
The consumer can choose which airline they fly with, or they can choose to not fly the airlines at all.
Companies should voluntarily step up customer service, understanding that customer service always helps the bottom line. Should the government regulate customer service? Perhaps there are situations where regulation is necessary such as when a company has a monopoly on the market segment, or there is a known life-and-death situation. But, there are no absolutes in business!
