Episode V: The Consumer Strikes Back with the Consumerist

There seems to be a consumer backlash brewing against defective products, uncaring customer service, and the general lack of respect for customers by business. First, there was the book, Customer Service Sucks!. Then there was the revenge of the Internet shoppers against PriceRitePhoto. Now we have ace blogger Joel Johnson (one of the original writers who made Gizmodo what it is today) launching The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back. And it already is full of tasty customer experience badness, including real photos of the bait-and-switch Booklyn Camera Retailers, Jeff Jarvis's Dell Hell, and Best Buy's Most Evil XBox 360 Adventure. I particularly enjoyed the customer support story about SBC DSL telling a customer that it couldn't provide internet service for the latest version of Mac OS X (despite it working just fine with no work on their part), and then billing him $200 to cancel his service because of their inability to support him.

I met Joel covering the Consumer Electronics Show last year, and I found him sharp, irreverent, and bitingly amusing. The Consumerist is definitely going on my feed list.

But all that said, the Consumerist and blogs like it should be a wake-up call for all marketers who say ship it first, and worry about support later. Blogs like this will put your bad customer experiences on the front page of Wired or the Wall Street Journal faster than ever before. It's time for marketers to stand behind their products and services (especially high-technology ones) or face the revenge of the angry (and blog-enabled) consumer.

Technorati Tags: CES, Consumer Electronics, Consumer Electronics Show, Customer service, eCommerce, Joel Johnson, Marketing, Retail, The Consumerist