No matter how good your product or service is – if you constantly treat your customers as though they are disposable, well, that’s what they will become.

Whether you are sitting on top of the world or clawing your way to your next order, you can’t put enough effort into customer service. Finding new customers and overcoming bad buzz is far more work than turning existing customer into evangelists.

Mark today as the start of a very high profile example of what I am trying to get at.

Apple’s arrogance has opened the door to competitors. It may be very hard to imagine it right now, but the Apple iPod is broken. I’m not merely talking about the fact that the nano is about as durable as a potato chip. I’m talking about the fact that Apple, the company, has no intention of servicing its current flagship product.

The iPod is so hot that Apple’s support strategy for malfunctioning iPods is to tell the customer to buy a new one. Oh, and if you switch to a competitor, the songs that you bought belong to us.

The rush to coolness has consumers snapping up all things Apple but the bubble will burst (signs are that it is starting) unless Apple decides that they can no longer afford arrogance.