

Ask HN: What can we do about customer service - prateekdayal

I come from India and here most companies suck at customer service. It's even hard to find relevant email ids or phone numbers, let alone getting the problems resolved. I am guessing that this is a universal problem.<p>I would love to do something about this. I have a few ideas and I am interested in knowing how others think this can be solved. To start off, I am thinking of a platform that provides info on customer service numbers, email ids, twitter and facebook urls etc of widely used services. Also, people should be able to write what worked for them and what did not. This information would be presented in a well organized and an easily searchable fashion.<p>Will this help? What else do you think can be done? Can there be a service around customer service?
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charliepark
There can absolutely be a service around customer service. I'm a little wary
about whether there can be a _business_ around customer service or not. Note
<http://gethuman.com>. It doesn't incorporate the Twitter / Facebook component
of what you're talking about, but it does show how to get ahold of a company
by phone. I'm not sure what, if any, business model they have in place. On the
other hand, <http://getsatisfaction.com> is focused on customer service, and I
believe they have a business model in place.

I think your best bet would be to do some early-stage customer development /
validation (which it looks like you're doing?) on it, and see if you can
develop a minimum viable product that people would pay for.

