All business owners say they care what their customers think but do most really strive to understand WHY their customers feel a certain way? Tabulating some “How Did We Do?” score cards and addressing the undeniable trends is kind of like cramming before a test but not actually learning anything.
Everyone knows from first hand experience that a dissatisfied patron is infinitely more likely to express their opinion than a happy one. Angry creates revolutionaries, happy makes for pacifists.
Comment boxes are like the wombs malcontents wish they could return to. Like death, taxes and Jerry Jones’ mummified face, you can count on the disgruntled traveler shouting from the 
rooftops about their terrible experience. Never mind that they should have set their own expectations when they reserved the cheapest room in the hotel. Years later they will still be blabbering about the “horrible hotel” in Italy even if the person listening is considering a trip to Germany.
Satisfied customers share their warm and fuzzies but usually after they are asked for a recommendation. Ken Blanchard’s masterful Raving Fans examines how to take a customer who’s 
perfectly content and turn them into an energized brand ambassador. Shouldn’t their voice be heard just as loudly as the doom and gloomer?
If your job is to care about customer service, your greatest concern lies within the beefiest part of the bell curve -- the group of people who don’t comment unless proactively asked, at which point they will usually say everything was “fine” or “good.” Only an ostrich would count such unenthusiastic and passive respondents in a positive column in his spreadsheet.
What those people are really telling you was that they are relieved they didn’t have a bad experience. They don’t feel totally ripped off. This is one of Blanchard’s central points. More than ever, the bar is lower than an Olympic limbo contest. While appreciating that the absence of a negative is really a positive development in many life situations -- if I am plunking down a few hundred bucks for a meal it would be nice if I didn't have to muster up a smile when the maitre d asks how it was.
Maybe once upon a time you could skate by, not worrying about those people but not anymore. In a world "more intimate than a bride and groom on their wedding night" if you allow 
dissatisfaction or even apathy to walk out the door it’s much more likely that social media will blast their feelings around the world. Trip Advisor is great if you are a GM running a resort that is generously staffed and frequently remodeled. But if the owners won’t spend the money for new sheets and the patio furniture has mold on it dating back to Watergate, good luck addressing all your critics online without looking defensive. Speaking of which, why do people expect you to not look defensive when that is what you are doing, defending?
Raving Fans was published in 1993. There’s no way Blanchard could have seen social media coming and yet his analysis and recommendations are literally a text book for using today’s marketing channels effectively. Which is the point -- there’s still a difference between service and marketing. Social media might be the stage but it is not the script.
The flag bearers of the future love to taunt old-schoolers as being dinosaurs who are crippled from understanding how to leverage the technology. It is undeniable that a big piece of today’s consumer perception involves “starting the conversation” and ongoing “stakeholder engagement.” Here’s a newsflash, most service still happens BEFORE that communication. Yes, the messaging and reviews influence the brand, the sales and the marketing, but all the Facebooking in the world never makes up for a dirty glass or rude sales associate.
