From the Editor’s Desk: Customer Service (Premium)

My first job in banking was as a teller for the Bank of New England in the late 1980s. I had no idea what I was doing at first, obviously, and so I had to lean on the experience of those I worked with. But early on, I had the strange experience of standing next to our head teller and listening to her tell a customer incorrect information about some process they needed to perform. I didn't speak up at the time, but because our branch was in a mall and the customer worked there, it was easy to find them. And so I did, during my lunch hour, and I told them about the mistake and what they really needed to do.

These situations are always difficult, but as is the case so often in life, the right thing to do is usually obvious, even when it's not easy to do. And over time, as my experience grew, I would eventually develop the courage to intervene when needed as mistakes were made and, hopefully, to do so gracefully.

But not always. Dealing with the public is difficult, and that felt doubly true when I was standing between them and their money or their paycheck getting cashed. And I had my share of run-ins over the years, leading to an obvious spin on the adage, which in our minds in banking was more correctly stated as "the customer is rarely right." But that's an easy stance to take when you're the smallest cog in a gigantic national-scale financial institution and it is somehow left to you, that most underpaid of employees, to be on the frontline for any abuse or vindictiveness that a customer might have. It's a different thing entirely when there is no giant corporation standing behind me, way behind me, bearing the ultimate responsibility for that relationship.

Put more clearly, when something goes wrong here on Thurrott.com, I'm on the line, because it's my name on the site, my responsibility, my fault. And partly through being the way I am, and partly because I was simply shielded from the business end of this business for so long, customer service just isn't a strong suit in this online era of kneejerk reactions. The very thing that might cause someone to be interested in my work, to follow the site, and perhaps even subscribe, could be the very thing that severs our relationship down the road. That is, you may celebrate my railing against Apple and its anti-competitive business practices, to use an obvious example, or you may be hurt by that because you use Apple products, and any condemnation of that company is an implicit criticism of you and your decision-making. You're not stupid, and you make good decisions. So the problem is me.

And, yeah, the problem is me. If I wasn't outspoken, and if I didn't actually care about the people who use personal technology, I wouldn't be relevant in any way. And I also wouldn't eventually upset at least some of the audience. It's a tough thing to navigate, and so all I can do is try and stay true to who I am, base my opinions on...