Comments on: Customer Loyalty

By: Mr. Cheap

Mr. Cheap — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:03:44 +0000

TFB: True enough. I guess it depends where in its lifecycle the company is. If it has a reliable number of loyal customers, it can gradually increase its rates (always making sure that they’re gaining customers faster than they’re losing them). If they’re in a high growth mode, unfortunately providing excellent service at a reasonable price is the only way they’re going to attract (and keep) customers.

My two complaints wouldn’t cost them a cent to fix, it would just take a willingness on their part to acknowledge the problem and fix it. Sadly most small businesses would rather argue with soon-to-be-ex-customers rather than embrace the opportunity to improve.

By: TFB

TFB — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:23:43 +0000

The thing is if they didn’t have the 2nd lowest price on Google, you wouldn’t have called them in the first place and you wouldn’t have experienced their 99% amazing service. So they can’t really raise their price quote. Companies offering better service should be able to charge more. But in this case they can’t.

By: Hanks Weekly Hangouts #22 (March 22, 2008) | My Investing Blog

Hanks Weekly Hangouts #22 (March 22, 2008) | My Investing Blog — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:19:40 +0000

[...] FourPillars hit a big article that debates how loyal you need to be to customers to keep them loyal to you. Is it worth it? I think loyalty does carry some weight and should be [...]

By: Mr. Cheap

Mr. Cheap — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:33:56 +0000

GIV: sorry that phrase threw you. Yes, basically its like a taxi (except you book them ahead of time and pay a flat rate).

By: Four Pillars

Four Pillars — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:01:22 +0000

Matt – you are right, but good to hear about the unusual service from Dell!

QR – we all deserve some customer service.

GIV – Hey, where have you been??

By: growthinvalue

growthinvalue — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:19:11 +0000

I had to book a car to take me to the airport

For some reason, it took me about 6 paragraphs to figure out what you meant by this. The way it’s written, I assumed you were renting a car (like from Discount or Budget or Enterprise or something) but from the sounds of it, you were basically getting a taxi, right?

That said, the crux of your piece is bang-on: customer experience is drastically underestimated, so I also find it odd that companies are willing to spend billions in advertising to get me to use their product once, but don’t lift a finger to make sure I’ll use it countless times again in my life.

By: Quietrose

Quietrose — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:16:30 +0000

Great post Mr. C! Thanks for the link to the article about “warm fuzzies.” I’ve passed it onto a few friends of mine, so thanks! As a small business owner, I agree with a lot of the points in the article. People want and deserve good customer service and to not provide that as a business owner is definitely not wise, in fact, it is detrimental to your business goals.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:40:50 +0000

A lot of people will market and sell themselves to the Nth degree but when it comes to actually providng you with the service that they offered initially they are no where to be found.

I ran into some great customer service from Dell lately. I had a weird issue and the gentleman from India stayed on the phone with me for close to two hours trying to figure it out. He made it his mission to try resolving the issue and being polite about it answering my silly questions in the process. I’ll definitely buy from them again.

Getting the business isn’t the goal… having it come back over and over again is