ressing these kinds of problems, of course, is experienced by the company over the long run, not in the immediate time frame. A customer does not have an epiphany and immediately drop service. Instead, the little irritations and inconsistencies build up, creating a backlog of discontent. Chapter 19 ADDRESSING LONG-TERM CUSTOMER CONTENTMENT How then can the advertising and marketing organizations hope to participate in a relationship with consumers under these terms? In today's world, it is a situation akin to a marriage where the partners stop talking to each other. The telephone company (the suitor) puts on its best face possible to woo the consumer, but after the contract is signed, the company stops listening to what consumers have to Customer service can be helpful in this case, providing some feedback, but by the time the receive the call, the customer is probably already very angry, far past the irritation point. The people commissioned with responsibility for the long-term health of customer relationships need to have ongoing feedback from those consumers before it gets to the point of a customer service intervention. Intimacy Issues But how do the advertising and marketing organizations establish this kind of feedback? Typical marketing wisdom calls for the company to aggressively research the market on a regular basis to ascertain how the public at large perceives the telco. This is a good first step and provides important insight. Unfortunately, this kind of market research, at the level of the general population, does little to tell us how well we are responding to the needs of individual customers. Inappropriate Intimacy Using our marriage analogy, one might conclude that the marketing and advertising organizations need to call each customer on a regular basis (say monthly) and ask them how they are doing. Are they happy with the service? Are they happy with the price? Is there anything they need? Unfortunately, this is not practical. For one, it is very expensive. No organization can afford to ask ea