As someone who works in advertising and marketing, I sometimes wonder if I should be a bit more understanding of schemes that let people lease out every square inch of their lives to the corporate world.

But there’s just something undeniably off-putting about things like Magpie, a new service that lets you sell ads on your Twitter feed.

The amount you’re paid is determined by the number of people who follow you on the micro-blogging site.

(As you can see, I qualify for up to 26.70 Euros a month, or $33.82 in Earthling dollars.)

I’m sure there are people jumping to take advantage of this and scrape in a few extra bucks. (As ReadWriteWeb points out, you can also sell ads on your Twitter background.) And hey, if it helps them stave off foreclosure or keep the lights on in this economy, more power to ‘em.

But come on, marketing folks, this is why cool kids don’t invite us to their parties. This is why people think a new technology is only worthwhile until the creepy, windowless white van pulls up and the advertising guys get out with handfuls of candy.

Want to make money on Twitter? No problem. Start an official account or two for your business and use them in ways that customers or potential customers will find helpful. Communicate, share, have a contest, show off your human side. Do it right, and you’ll increase customer loyalty while driving up sales.

Oh well, I suppose this is all a victimless crime for now. I wouldn’t sell ads on my feed, buy ads on a feed or follow someone who put ads in their feed.

Maybe I’m just playing hardball and holding out for a better offer than $34 a month (rounded up to make me feel better about myself).

[From The price of my soul? $33.82 a month, apparently.]

Until very recently, I had been a picture-perfect ideal Cox Cable customer for over ten years. I do believe I must have been considered very valuable to them. Here’s what I mean by “ideal”: 1) I’ve never paid a bill late, not even once; 2) I never call to complain about anything, even outages (call it laziness); 3) the only times I do call are to purchase UFC fights- increase their wallet share; and 4) all of my services are bundled with them- internet, phone, cable. What more could Cox ask for? Surely there must be some sort of gold star next to my name in their customer database, reminding them how very low-maintenance, reliable and profitable I am.

A few months ago, I started to question some of the charges on the cable portion of the bill, which I had never really looked at in much detail before. The list of charges, surcharges, taxes, and other miscellaneous items went on and on. And on. I called Cox to get an explanation as to what some of this stuff meant. In the course of that conversation, I asked if there was any way, given my history with them and the premium bundle we had with them, to decrease our monthly bill. The agent was very polite and courteous, as they always are at Cox, but the answer was a definite no. She said they have fixed pricing and they do not negotiate or compete with any other providers.

A couple of months later, I gave it another try. We all know that when you call a contact center, 9 times out of 10 you will get a different answer. So, working a system I am well acquainted with, I gave it another shot. This agent, as polite as the first agent I had spoken to, gave me the same response. 

Earlier this week, we switched to Qwest for everything - Direct TV, phone and internet. I called Cox to cancel, once the Qwest stuff was successfully up-and-running, and THIS time when I called and said I was canceling because of their prices, they transfered me to “the department that could help me” (aka Retention). The very nice retention lady looked at my account and said I was such a great, long-time customer and they certainly didn’t want to lose my business. She promptly offered to cut my monthly bill by 25%. So now that I was cancelling, they valued me enough to discount my bill. Did my value with them INCREASE now that I was cancelling?  

Hmmm….if Cox had treated me right while I was STILL their customer, and not when I’d already moved on and checked-out, then I’d be with them today.  

Like most consumers I am looking for companies that make good on their promises - what they say in the sales process better be consistent with my experience as a customer. If they promise me that service and support is accessible, reliable and effective and in the event of problems they will be there for me, then I expect that to happen. When companies don’t fulfill their promises, customers talk about it. And these companies can lose someone’s business, and not even know it, because of what people are saying about them. Take this example:

About a year ago, I was online researching PC’s - in particular there was a Toshiba model I was considering. After only a few minutes of online hunting and pecking, I found a forum dedicated to this exact model that said that it had a really bad flaw. Something was wrong with the operating system that caused it to power down at random times with no warning. After more searching, I quickly found several other forums talking about the same problem. A proliferation – people were all over the web talking about this! They were upset that this problem existed at all, but more significantly, they were frustrated by the way Toshiba was handling the problem. Which was, uh, not at all.

Customers had contacted Toshiba, navigated IVR mazes, waited on-hold forever, got transferred numerous times, and spoke to several people, only to be told that Toshiba did not think there was a problem. Come again? I mean, there were hoards of forums dedicated to this exact issue. So after Toshiba refused to listen, people turned to the all-powerful web to a) ask for help and b) warn others. What did I learn? That this problem had been going on for a while, but Toshiba insisted there was no problem with their PC- it must be user error. Who do you think I believed: the customers or the company? (By the way, it turns out there was a valid problem and some technical geeks who obviously cared more than Toshiba posted the fix online).

In this case, what I saw on the web was so powerful that I decided not to buy the Toshiba notebook and, even further, I decided not to buy any Toshiba products ever. I did not even personally experience the problem with Toshiba, and I had made my mind up to never buy from them.

So, what if Toshiba had been right and there really WASN’T a problem with the notebook? What if it was in fact some mass user error? The outcome for me would have been the same. I would have read the forums and I would have believed my fellow consumers and I still wouldn’t have purchased the PC. Fair? Maybe not, but it’s the reality of the situation and companies need to deal with it. Customers are a powerful voice in judging companies and being a promoter or a wet blanket. 

On the flip side, the powerful customer voice can also WIN someone’s business through the same phenomena. Companies cannot control what people are saying, but they can certainly influence it – should take advantage of it even. Word is going to get out either way, so create effective customer experiences and what gets out will be what you want people to hear.