Standing Out From The Crowd

Stop right there!

If you were looking for some “how to improve your love life” article, you came to the wrong place. Rather, I would like to explore how the emotions involved in customer relationships are strangely similar to those you have with your loved ones.
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Well, customers may be willing to share the object of their affection with a couple million other people, but the difference ends there… Like in romances, customers will become jealous if you favor others over them. If your company sees more value in acquiring new customers than in keeping a current one, the current one will leave.

Take for example wireless companies. To get into the proverbial bed with you, they lie and say they’ll treat you right. They offer you free phones, cash back, gifts and promise to take care of you and make you happy forever after. However, as soon as the sun comes up, or you’ve signed a two-year contract, you are tossed aside and simply added to the list of their many conquests. You, as an individual customer, don’t matter anymore.

Being treated this way is bad enough but then, adding insult to injury, the company continues to flirt with others right in front of you; making the same empty promises they made to you.

If your girlfriend or boyfriend treated you this way, how would you respond? Exactly!
Now, how do you think your customers will respond?

Oh sure, you may be able to fool a few and keep them with you for a while. But, as soon as the competition starts making its move and offering better perks, your customers are as good as gone.

Long romance or one-night stand?

Does offering all these perks to attract new customers really pay off when you treat them like that and they leave you in two years? Why not reward loyal current customers by giving them special offers or at least the same advantages as new customers when they renew their contracts. Better yet, why not offer them incremental benefits throughout the years?

It costs six times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.¹

So, investing in customer retention not only saves your company money, it also leads to loyal, life-long customers and a higher return on investment.

In simple language: Set the right expectations, and be ready to invest as much in retention as you do in acquisition!

After all, one of the most basic rules of relationships is that if you are happy with what you have, you will be less tempted or willing to risk your relationship for instant gratification.

Is it time to break-up?

SPRINT has taken a somewhat unique approach to the customer relationship; they’ve flipped the table and are dumping their unhappy customers, (SPRINT is starting to cancel customers’ contracts when they call customer service too often).

I wrote an article about this topic last year (Bad, Bad Customer… No Soup for You!), explaining how companies were starting to identify customers who don’t measure up or are deemed too high maintenance.

I am not taking sides on this matter², but you can bet that outraged high maintenance customer is going to tell everyone she knows about your service and your company has a lot more to lose in brand awareness and public image than she does.

Having said all this, I ask again: Is it worth losing the one you’re with?

^{1 - Stevens, M. Extreme Management: What They Teach At Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Warner Business Books, March, 2002.
2 - You can read views of both sides on Seth Godin’s Blog “Treating different customers differently” and “The first thing“, and also at the consumerist.com.}

Originally published at Vox Inc Customer Experience Articles

When I was a kid, I was the one who would dismantle mom’s new blender to see how it worked… Sometimes, I would even put it back together again. Then, I grew up and became a computer geek. No surprise there, but the point is: I am proud of knowing how electronic equipment works and for being able to assemble anything on my own. So, when I call some 1-800 number for technical support (especially Comcast’s), I really believe I have narrowed down all possibilities on my side of the line.

Unfortunately, there is where my trial by fire begins. Call Center people always talk as if I’d never seen a TV or a cable box before. Then they start to spit their meticulously scripted sentences to me from the beginning. Even if it is the fifth time I am calling that day! That’s when I get the feeling of being some kind of robotized, standardized, and minimalized audience. Not at all special, or worst: not any different from anyone else.

I can understand that they prepare themselves to deal with people that are even afraid of touching the TV, but 1-800 numbers should be able to identify the customer’s profile and offer different strokes for different folks. At least, they should be able to verify that it is not the first time someone is calling for the same reason and drop some lines off the script. A simple attitude change probably would be enough to gather the customer’s appreciation, a more effective support, and less time spent on the line for both sides.

“Not all customers are equal”. Everyone should already know that. I just hope it doesn’t take to long now, because I am still waiting on the line.

Several shocking security breaches, compromising the personal data of millions of customers, have been reported lately.
Below are just a few of the most flagrant cases:

- Chase trashes 2.6M customer files
- Second Lifers’ ‘first life’ hacked
- Wells Fargo leaks personal data
- AT&T deceptive on data theft

What amazes me about these breaches is not only the scope and impact of the leaks, but the way in which they occurred. Most of them have been caused by an improper use of data by employees (like the now infamous case of the US Department of Veteran Affairs). Others were caused by losing control of how personal data was handled by companies’ partners or vendors. Chase’s customer data was mistakenly thought to be trash and thrown out. Quite a treasure trove for identity thieves.

Although most corporate reactions to leaks have improved by becoming more forthcoming and transparent, the breaches are still a huge blow to costumers’ trust. How can anyone believe a website’s Privacy Policy or the company’s Safety Statement when such egregious security gaps abound.

Transparency is good, critical even, but is not enough. Sooner or later, companies will have to start taking security lapses seriously. And it better be sooner, because as the saying goes: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I always understood that it can be difficult to please a customer, but I never gave much thought about why. Seth Godin has some curious insights though on that matter in two of his recent blog entries: What People Want and The Thing About the Wind.

My two cents to companies: Listen very carefully to your customers and understand them as if you were in their shoes. Without that, you may be catering to your customers’ every whim without ever giving them what they really want.