Is Customer Service a Bad Model?
We talk to journalist Chris Colin about the practice of "sludge" and hear from you: what’s your sludge story?
July 14, 2025
55 min
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2,907 of 3,393
July 14, 2025
Is Customer Service a Bad Model?
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Is Customer Service a Bad Model?
Summary
To be a modern consumer is to experience poor customer service at some point in your life. The kind of service that has you in a fever dream of pressing “1” for “representative,” getting your call dropped, calling back again, and then asking to speak to a manager who can’t solve your problem. Experts call this kind of service “sludge,” an administrative morass meant to deter, not help, consumers. And for some businesses, it’s a feature not a bug. We’ll talk to journalist Chris Colin about the practice and hear from you: what’s your sludge story?
Guests:
Chris Colin, journalist, The Atlantic
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