Silly question?

Yes and no.

Of course, customers matter. There isn’t a company on the planet that would tell you that its customers do not matter. But often, what is said and what is done simply don’t match up.

Consider the airlines. They ask us to “fly the friendly skies” and even publish their customer commitments on their websites. Examples: American and United.

Yet, my blog buddy Mary Schmidt has found their baggage policies to be anything but friendly. The latest, from United, is to charge certain customers to check a second bag, regardless of weight.

Or the PC companies. Pick one, doesn’t really matter which one. Google it. Odds are, you will find more than a few complaints among the top results. To be fair, it’s rarely a case of rudeness or refusal to support the customer. More often than not, the customer service rep does his or her best, but it’s just not good enough.

Everything from corporate policies to product shortcomings to rampant miscommunication get in the way. Outcome: unhappy customer publishes complaint in a blog or forum. And the problem compounds if the company doesn’t respond to the public complaint, either because it doesn’t see it or it simply doesn’t know what to say or do.

But are these complaints really having any impact? Does individual customer dis-satisfaction, as expressed on blogs and complaint sites, really matter?

Evidence suggests not. Or at least not enough.

As entrepreneur Chip Griffin wrote recently, despite blogger complaints and online mis-steps in recent months, both Wal-Mart and Target appear to be doing just fine:

Companies should continue to take social media seriously, however, because those who have chosen to join the conversation are likely to be more vocal and cultivate an important audience for or against a product. But the significance of these conversations are still at their very earliest stages. Despite widespread dissatisfaction with Wal-Mart and its policies online, millions of people still shop there and the company remains successful. Strong disapproval of Target’s approach to bloggers brought some calls to boycott the company, but I don’t see the lines getting any shorter there.”

Personally, I find this all a bit perplexing. Customer service is a large part of the new marketing. Not the only part, but the product experience must match up to the promise. Consistently, over time.

It is now far far easier for people to learn about the experiences of others. Whether through forums, blogs, podcasts or social networks like Twitter, Digg and Facebook, it is almost certain that your customers will be talking to each other far more than they are talking to you. Anyone in business will tell you that the best lead is a referral. It stands to reason that the opposite, a bad reference, would be a deal-killer. But is it?

The Society for New Communications Research and corporate partner Nuance decided to find out just how much we — bloggers, customers, netizens — think our opinions matter. This is important research that will provide a baseline for understanding the influence of customers on companies in our new “social media world.” Please take the survey and let us know whether you think Corporate America is listening. SNCR is offering a special discounted registration to New Comm Forum in April for those that complete the survey. The direct link to survey is here.

Thanks.

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