As I waited for an answer to my VCR inquiry from a stereo company, the recording stated a customer care representative would be available shortly. At that moment, I realized its finally catching on everywhere. With aging baby boomers, world events and additional pressures in todays society; it is customer care that has evolved in our economy. We have moved from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and are currently leaning towards a servicecare economy. As we live in a high tech-high button touch environment, many personal contacts have been decreased making each customer interaction more important than ever to corporate imagery. For example, if you call for computer tech support, the representative often makes it a point to address you by first name. If its the bank credit card company, they may ask How are you doing today? This makes the customer feel less like a number and more like a human being.
The successful restauranteurs always took service one step further towards care because they understood restaurant customer service literally involves the immediate health of the patron– more so than any other industry (except for healthcare industry...