In the last 24 hours, the ‘net has been abuzz with Google’s admission that their SEO is not as good as it could be.  Some see this as a sign that Google “ain’t all that”. Others see it as a reason to question the value of SEO. Regardless of what you make of Google’s SEO revelation, I see some lessons here for all of us.

1. Openness and honesty are cool. (And they make a difference.)

Yesterday evening my anti-virus software went crazy. It started finding viruses all over my netbook. After several hours of banging my head against our kitchen table, with no success in cleaning up the problem, I turned to my good friend Google for help. There I discovered (to my great relief) that there was no virus on my computer. Instead, my anti-virus software had a problem.

I learned this because millions of others were having the same experience. Because many of them were discussing it online I was able to conclude that it was a software malfunction that would soon be fixed by the software vendor.

What I find shockingly sad is

When we think of good or bad customer service we don’t always consider search engines. Maybe that’s because they are free services.  And we rarely have direct contact with an employee as we use a search engine. So we see them in a different context than, say, a coffee shop or an auto dealer.

But search engines, like any business, do deliver customer service. Some do it very well, like Google. Others, could use some improvement.

Here are the most recent results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a leading survey done every year to gauge how industries and companies are serving their customers. As you can see Google is head and shoulders above the rest.