Blogging and ROI

Naked Conversations: "Sometimes, the quest for ROI in all corners of the corporation has caused the problem with customer relations that most reasonable people agree exists. We wanted better ROI from customer support, so we lowered the quality for the support. Marketing was historically to touchy feely for financial reviews, so we started adding ROI requirements to each project, forgetting that the essence of marketing is relationships that improve the ROI of the sales department. Companies still know this."

Shel gets it right here. People are so focused on finding data and quantifying the ROI for their business decisions that they often fail to provide the basic service that their customers expect and need. Don't fall into that trap (yes, that means you Amazon).

UPDATE: Tim Bray really nails it- "There’s a word for companies that base all decisions on ruthless quantitative ROI metrics: Bankrupt."