Sup nerds,

On Friday night I went out for a nice steak and it had me thinking.

Customer service is at an all-time low worldwide.

Seriously, walk into any clothing shop and the salespeople don’t even greet you anymore (they’re just scrolling Instagram). Waiters can barely hold a conversation or look you in the eye. Contact a software company and it’s just crappy AI.

While this sucks, terrible customer service being the norm presents an arbitrage opportunity for founders like me. Let me explain below.

On Friday night, I got steak with my wife Erica and my buddy Tyler.

The food was fantastic, but I was actually most impressed by the waitress. She was friendly, making jokes, actually looking us in the eye. It was a rare occasion especially for a waiter or waitress in their 20s. Sure that’s normal for an older diner waitress from the South who calls you “honey” but Gen-Z kids can barely hold a conversation. So the fact this waitress could was impressive. It shouldn't feel rare, but it did.

I think customer service is in a terrible place right now for 2 main reasons:

1. Remote work - Why work retail when you can work remote? The most talented highly qualified people will choose laptop jobs 99% of time.

2. COVID - Young people got worse at talking to each other. And since young people are the ones who primarily work customer service jobs, customer service is worse than ever.

So there’s an arbitrage opportunity.

Customer service is at an all-time low right now, so if you provide good customer service, you stand out big-time.

In 2018, I worked at a Mom & Pop Italian restaurant back home in PA.

I’m talking true Mom & Pop. Like they gave you a tour of the restaurant when you walked in. Like there were posters of half-naked Italian women on the walls of the men’s bathroom. Like I grew up going there when I was 5 years old and worked there when I was 18. It’s a staple of the town I grew up in.

I try to run my software company like a Mom & Pop Italian Restaurant.

I know the names of my most loyal customers. I know their jobs and businesses. I take them out for coffee when they’re in town. I tell them to text me or pick up the phone with them and shoot the shit. When somebody has a bug, I go into their meme dashboard and drop a quick surprise meme in there for them. It takes 2 seconds but it always makes them laugh (and they usually end up tweeting about it)

I wish more startups acted like mom & pop businesses.

A lot of early-stage software founders I know rush to replace customer service with AI to save on costs. I get it. I’m both a tech nerd AI enthusiast and a cheap Jew who loves saving money, but I urge you to keep it human for as long as as possible. A) it’s a better customer experience. B) You get to know your customers better. Bro you’ve got like 30 customers and you’re using an AI chatbot that doesn’t even work to answer their problems. C’mon, that’s just cruel. I mean if you’re a giant startup or public company, Ok use AI, but if it’s a small startup, stop that shit right now.

On Twitter, it’s all me responding.

On YouTube, it’s all me responding.

On LinkedIn where everyone uses AI, it’s all me and I stand out way more because of it.

This goes for customer service, content, and everything in between.

I tweeted this yesterday because it’s just so fucking true. If you can just be a normal person like that waitress, you’re ahead of 99% of people.

There’s literally a huge arbitrage right now by just being a human.

Take advantage of it.

Use AI to build better software and make cooler content like face-swapping, but when it comes to customer service and relationships, keep that shit human.

I've seen a lot of AI relationship managers and CRMs get launched in the last few years, and all of them failed and shut down, but wanna know what’s still going?

That old-school Mom & Pop restaurant.

Something to think about.

Memes of the Week

MEMELORD MAFIA FOR THE WIN AS ALWAYS.

Thanks for reading nerds.

Create some cool shit this week.

Jason “The Memelord” Levin

Founder of Memelord Technologies and Creator of Silly Valley Ventures