Who really pays your bills?

via The Consumerist, a study has shown that companies in the top 20% in terms of customer satisfaction also happen to outperform the general market by about 40%. Let's paraphrase that: Companies with great customer satisfaction are richly rewarded.

Now when I first read this article, I thought, "Duh". But then a few days later, I ran into a waiter who responded to my request for a side salad instead of fries (Look, there's a reason why I haven't posted any pictures of myself lately. Can you say Tubby McTubbs?) with the phrase, "We don't do that"... emphasis on the "we" and "that". When struck in the face with such abhorrent behavior, regardless of whether or not it's a customer server to customer servee situation, I get flash frozen by shock and then pathetically crumble. I'm not good with confrontations, especially when spit + food can still be a valid equation.

So instead, I seethe. And seethe I do extremely well. But it brought back to mind this study and how it reveals a truth in business. No matter what you do, if you screw the customer, you're screwing yourself. Which brings me to the purpose of this post: How many MMOs out there are appropriately allocating resources to customer service?

When I was brand managing games, I spent nearly half of my day immersed in the community. This was half because I'm a gamer myself and was power tripping on being on the other side and half because my business training told me that giving a lot of love to the customer pays off. I'd like to think it worked but we never got the sheer volume of people the bigger MMO's can claim. What would a study done in our industry regarding customer satisfaction and success of the game show us?