Are corporations serious about developing positive WOM? Then their customer service representatives will actually need to troubleshoot customer problems and have the internal traction to get issues resolved, both on a case-by-case basis and across the board.
Example: my buddy Sanford recently had an issue with a popular ISP terminating his IM username of many years, due to a new policy (one that makes sense -- except in the case of an exception). Sanford happened to have access to a corporate executive who pulled some strings to fix his problem for him. Talk about customer service! Of course, Sanford got no satisfaction going through traditional channels.
If we're well-connected, we've all had similar experiences, and we're all familiar with getting screwed when we don't have an inside track. Here's a fundamental for getting good WOM: contacting Customer Service is the same as knowing an insider at the company.
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