In my pocket was a crisp twenty-dollar bill, which is like a thousand dollars in garage sale money. I perused my neighbors’ offerings fortified with the knowledge I gained from watching countless antique road shows on PBS.
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There has never been a greater opportunity for business owners to exploit the horrendous customer service follies of their competitors. Good has sadly become the new great under this new customer service paradigm. Over the next decade, I believe we can expect new companies to spring up by merely meeting customers’ core needs. As consumers, we are striving to simply get what we pay for and that simple aim is rarely meet.

 Has the pendulum swung all the way to the sterility of e-business with it’s less for less mantra? Are we finally working back to a customer-centered philosophy and away from sales goes to the lowest bidder? The answer is clear: companies that reintegrate the human touch back into their company and strive for concierge levels of service will thrive.  Even the banking industry, with a presumably higher customer tolerance for the impersonal reports:

"This is a relationship management business," said Stephen Stitle, chairman, president and CEO of National City Bank of Indiana. "People still want to know their banker."

The head of a local accounting office made a similar observation:

"I believe that in the long run, personal service will still be the main differentiation for companies that are high performers," said Theodore D. Dickman, partner-in-charge at BKD LLP in Indianapolis.

It is indeed a fascinating paradox that despite the overwhelming knowledge that nearly every industry has become more competitive, business should respond with countless barriers to their customers. Antiquated policies and limited thinking binds the growth of these stalled concerns. Both retail and general industry has defined new rules for their business that clearly serve their company, not their customer.