Since January of this year, my company has been conducting an ongoing survey to determine what people think about the state of customer service these days. With four months of data in hand, it's time to start revealing some of the responses we're getting. So here is a peek at our ongoing 2008 State of Customer Service survey. Over the next few weeks I will dive deeper into the responses and I'll share my thoughts about them.

For now, here are what our survey respondents say about the State of Customer Service in 2008*:

How has customer service changed in the last 12 months?

11% feel customer service is slightly or much better than the same time last year
35% think service quality has not changed in the last year
31% believe customer service is slightly worse than 12 months ago
7% say customer is much worse than this time last year

On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest) how would you rate the quality of customer service today?

5 - 3%
4 - 28%
3 - 40%
2 - 10%
1 - 0%

Best 5 industries for customer service:

1. Restaurant/Dining
2. Hotel/Lodging
3. Banking and Financial
4. Retail
5. Internet

Worst 5 industries for customer service:

1. Wireless/phone
2. Retail
3. Government and Travel (Tied)
4. Healthcare
5. Banking and Financial

*Please note this is not meant to be a scientific survey. It's based on responses from people who visit my corporate website and who participate in the survey. This should not be considered a statistically valid sample of the entire USA (or Internet) population.