What is about advanced capitalism that reproduces primitive Soviet-style customer service experiences? what bank wouldn’t want to help a valued customer stressing out about her lost payment cards and personal data. Or so we thought. Five reasons why call centres end up failing.

Can any company with bad customer service survive in a world of ubiquitous social media? Here’s a small round-up of the many ways in which my local train company, First Capital Connect, is committing customer servicide.

Imagine the cost of bad customer service in a world where 200 million blogs exist and 34% of bloggers post opinions on products and services. Bad customer service begins to sound like customer servicide doesn’t it?

This is an excellent government customer service innovation from Singapore. If you need to go to a health clinic, it’s useful to know how long you need to wait. By giving customers this information, clinics can cut costs by smoothing out service demand peaks.

I don’t often post other peoples’ content. But I thought this was such a great presentation about why “online” continues to be a disruptive technology. It encompasses beautifully why putting “eLipstick” on the pig of a fragmented legacy organisation doesn’t meet customers’ service and experience expectations.

I get unreasonably impatient with bad service but turn into a love-struck puppy when a company really impresses me. But to do that, doesn’t just mean exceeding expectations. It’s increasingly about doing the seemingly impossible. The amazingly lovely Elysium Hotel gave us one of the best customer experiences of our lives. So this is a ‘customer service postcard’ from our holiday.