Earlier this week a study about customer satisfaction caught my eye. Since I was formerly an editor at CRM Magazine all things about customer service and satisfaction tend to pique my interest. Plus, as a consumer of lots of products and way too many services, I also feel that I, like you, have a big stake in how companies treat their customers (us!!).

Findings from the study, which was conducted by The Customer Respect Group, focused on site usability, communication and trust.

It’s important for online marketers to note that customer service is a key business differentiator and one that already often puts online entities at an immediate disadvantage. Some consumers are fearful of not being familiar with sites (trust), they can’t find where on the site to contact someone or ask send questions when there are problems (usability). And if they send an email to a general box it’s often ignored or they receive unsolicited promotional emails from the company (communication).

An eMarketer article on the study states that: “It is important to remember that delivering customer service online is already a compromise.”

That article also cites a June 2006 Forrester study that found “most US businesses think that phone representatives and retail branches are better at taking care of customers than Web sites, e-mail or IM/online chats. In fact, this makes it even more important to get the online experience right.”

And remember if you don’t get the experience right, it’s very easy for people that are already online to spread the word via the same medium - whether its sending an email to a friend or multiple friends, giving your business a negative review on site that encourages user reviews and comments, or by blogging about it.

I find all of this information particularly interesting in light of recent horrible customer service experience I had with T-Mobile. It was a trivial matter that could have been resolved online, quickly and amicably and without harm or financial loss to either party. Instead the situation has dragged on.

This continuation has bred such distaste on my part for the unsavory and unprofessional business practices that T-Mobile uses to hoodwink and hamstring customers that I am appalled. And rather than simply retelling my customer service nightmare to my sweetie and a friend or two, I have already spread the word of T-Mobile’s less than upfront policies regarding my specific story to a much wider circle of family and friends. I felt obligated to prevent them from encountering the same problems. And yes, I was very quick to take advantage of all the new online avenues available to all consumers who want to share their customer experiences.

I think the old generally accepted figures were that if a customer wasn’t satisfied they might tell 10 other people. The Web has made it possible for them to tell hundreds or even hundreds of thousands. Remember Dell and Jeff Jarvis?

There was a great story our local San Francisco newspaper about this topic earlier this month.

Check it out and then let me know some of the ways that you are insuring good online customer service. lisap@revenuetoday.com.