Marketing expert and best-selling author Seth Godin is an active commentator and participant in online developments. His blog is an extensive repository of the remarks by one of the most forward-thinking and creative minds of our time. Ryan Holiday describes Godin's site as "one of the common sense, "doesn't everyone think this way?" kind of sites. The thing is that most people don't think that way and what seems obvious is really counterintuitive to how most of us operate".

While Godin offers daily pearls of wisdom that range from remarks about poor customer service experiences to examples of producer-consumer interactivity in action, the aspect we'll focus on today relates to the simple task of answering the phone. Godin states that customer service as we generally know it is broken, for three reasons:

1. The internet has taught us to demand everything immediately (and perfect).
2. The rapid proliferation of choice has taught us to demand that everything should be cheap.
3. The availability of blogs and other public histories means that it is harder than ever to treat different customers differently.

While one response - the path currently being trodden by company after company who fail to realise and rectify the problem - is to continue to employ ill-trained, poorly-supported staff with low job satisfaction and a high turnover rate, the alternative response requires a significant shift in company values:

Blow it up and start over.

Godin states that in the current marketplace, the most valuable marketing event is almost always an inbound phone call.

An inbound phone call is the ultimate in short-term permission. The customer or prospect is taking the time to call you. She's focused, interested, paying attention and willing to trust you. And yet, even though the rules have changed, the lowest-paid, least-respected, highest-turnover jobs in the organization now do the most important marketing work.

Godin has opined several times about the value of great customer service when answering the telephone. The most important message to take from this, though, is that companies who cannot deliver timely and effective customer service are not sustainable within the economy. The customer waits too long, and they find an alternative.

When you need to answer the phone in one ring, you discover exactly what it means to provide a certain level of service. Either you're succeeding or failing. So you hire more people and devote more resources, because there is no slippery slope. On or off. Expensive? Well, it's more than you're spending now. But it's cheaper than advertising and cheaper than losing a customer to the competitor who had the discipline.

At Digicon the phone never rings more than three times. We drop whatever we're doing in order to give you the attention you deserve. After all, you took the time to call. You're focused, interested, paying attention and willing to trust us.