In 2008, the president of Brazil signed a decree (number 6.523) that defines customer service standards for companies operating in that country. According to Michael Maoz, of Gartner.com this is not necessarily is a good thing. He does not believe it will improve how Brazilian customers are treated.
Whether it works or not, I like what the Brazilian president has done. Not because I’m a big fan of regulation. (I’m not.)
I like this because it puts the issue of customer service out in the open. It makes it a priority. It says, the way people are treated is important.
You can argue that companies should be left to set customer service standards on their own. And I agree. The problem is, most do not. And if they do, they rarely tell their customers about it. (Most organizations that have published their customer service standards on their websites are government agencies.)
If companies created customer service standards that were meaningful to their customers, published them and then met (or exceeded them), there would be no need for a law like this.
What do you think? Do we need laws that regulate how customers are treated?
