Thanks for that. The full post from Seth is here and well worth reading:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/direct-from-consumer-marketing.html

(Back when every consumer was alone, you could ignore the few angry ones and use the money you saved to run more ads. But now? Now in the DFC era, do you really have any choice?

Angry phone calls are your friend. They’re your friend because the alternative is angry tweets and angry blog posts.)

Hoping this helps.

I am not sure if you know this or not, but it is a very small minority of customers, who will stay with a provider who treats them badly.

Customers are smart and today more so than ever, will take their business elsewhere if they think they are being mistreated by a provider.

In marketing, we know that there is a direct link between how good a company’s customer service is and how good their customer retention is. This is sometimes called their ‘attrition’ rate.

Whilst ’some’ customers will put up with poor service for a while, most will very quickly (and often vocally) move on.

As Seth Godin said recently on his blog, today’s customer is very powerful – because they have so many social media tools, which they can use to hurt a company’s reputation.

If you piss them off, you are lucky if all they do is switch providers!

In my experience, it’s totally incorrect to suggest that it’s ok to offer below par service, because customers will just take it.

They won’t.

Seems to end up being the lesser of two evils. Sad part is, they shouldn’t all be evils.