A wall poster caught my eye on a recent visit to a San Francisco company that provides online customer support. "Customer service," it announced, "is the new marketing."
Well, not entirely. Traditional marketing and PR, which themselves are blurring, still play a major role. But I don't doubt that great service and support are the surest way to keep customers and - in an age when people increasingly rely on recommendations - win new ones.
That's why I found a front-page ...