I am not one to suffer poor customer service in silence. Regrettably, the last week has provided me with the opportunity to be unusually prolific. I’ve written an email to the furniture retailer who didn’t deliver on time, sent several tweets while on hold with an airline, and followed up with an email to that airline about the multiple errors in my bookings. Last week’s restaurant with the wonderful chef was noted on Yelp, as well as the interminably slow service. The florist who sent me near-dead lilies was also called out on Yelp. And I’ve responded to two online surveys, offering both companies what I hope was constructive advice on how they could improve their service for future customers — of whom I am unlikely to be among.

I am not alone. According to Forrester’s North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2009 (US), 68% of North American consumers say that they've had unsatisfactory service interactions in the past 12 months. And many of us are not suffering in silence: 71% of these consumers have provided feedback directly to the company through surveys, phone calls, emails, or letters. Further, 16% of these consumers who have had bad service experiences have vented through social channels, such as online customer reviews, Facebook status updates, or blog posts.

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading my colleague Andrew McInnes’ report called “How Consumers Complain About Poor Service.”

Target was just named the "2010 Mobile Retailer of the Year" by Mobile Commerce Daily (see article). Hard to believe eBay wasn't in the top three with their anticipated $1.5B revenue on the mobile channel this year, but they won last year. This speaks to the fact that it isn't just about revenue. In fact, among companies we've surveyed, offering convenient services to customers to engage them more, improve satisfaction and loyalty, etc. top the list of near-term objectives. If the services aren't convenient (see research), consumers will not adopt and use the services. If this doesn't happen, companies won't see the revenue growth or cost savings they are anticipating.

One of the top questions I get from clients is, "Who is best in class?" Any of these three retailers could take that honor. What really impresses me about Target is their breadth of innovative services, the quality of the experience, and to top it off . . . they sell to mainstream America. My favorite service: building a shopping list with the bar-code-scanning technology. Remember that example we've all heard about the smart refrigerator? You remove and throw the empty milk carton out, and "milk" is automatically added to your shopping list. This doesn't do that exactly, but it comes closer than any other application I know. There is also tremendous consistency in experience from online to mobile Web to the applications -- at times, it is so good that it's indistinguishable.

Having not updated its AA.com Web site since 2002, on November 14, 2010, American Airlines launched a new home page. Compared to the previous version of the home page, the new design is cleaner; all essential content appears above the fold. The site uses a brighter color palette as well. Site navigation has been greatly improved. Key tasks, like flight booking, account log-in, and flight check-in, now appear in the same navigation menu. The “Book Travel” tab consolidates non-air product sales, including third-party ancillary services like hotels and cruises, with flight booking. The result is a home page that looks more like a travel retailer than “just” an airline Web site.

Even so, given the long time since American last updated AA.com, it’s disappointing that American didn’t push its new home page concept further. For example, American could have used this opportunity to launch a truly pacesetting home page, allowing users to personalize both content and placement of modules. As Forrester noted in a 2009 report, more than 7 in 10 US online consumers use a personalized portal site like iGoogle or My Yahoo! A flexible, “modular” home page would have helped American further increase AA.com’s utility to its customers and allow the airline to use analytics to better understand what is important to its travelers. That insight could, in theory, be used for everything from targeting offers to product or route network development.

A few months ago I blogged about how the UK’s Co-operative Bank had come top in our UK Bank Content & Functionality Benchmark. The bank has now done it again by coming top in our 2010 European Bank Customer Advocacy Rankings.

Customer advocacy is the perception among customers that the bank does what’s right for them, not just what’s right for its own bottom line. In every country we survey in our Consumer Technographics® research, we’ve found that customers who view their main bank as a customer advocate have more accounts at their main bank, are more likely to consider their bank for their next financial purchase, and are more likely to recommend it to others.