Recently I interacted with two different large companies about problems with merchandise or advertising. One company stonewalled and acted like they almost wanted me to never spend money with them again. The other company, however, went far beyond my expectations and won a customer for life.
When I was in retail, one of the companies I worked for spent a lot of money researching the lifetime value of a loyal customer. This company discovered that once we had won a customer’s business, the value of that customer (if we could keep him or her) was more than $50,000. That’s quite a bit of cash. That company is no longer in business, and I believe it’s because it failed to see some opportunities and because it was truly one man’s vision. Not long after that man passed away the company lost its direction, ran amuck, and soon folded. But that’s another story.
Back to the lifetime value of a customer. In our increasingly connected society I believe that the lifetime value of a customer has increased ten or even a hundred times over what it was just a few years ago. One customer who has a good experience and raves about it to his friends most certainly drives more value than the amount he could purchase alone. But a customer with a bad experience (statistically for every one who speaks up there are nine with a similar experience who didn’t) can have the same effect in the opposite direction, perhaps even more so.
In my recent customer experiences, the manager of the first store I dealt with claimed that the salesman would never have made a mistake because she’d been working there for too long. She then suggested that if I wanted the original discount I’d thought I was getting, I should just come back and spend more money in her store. She never once offered anything except reasons why she couldn’t or wouldn’t help me. But if she had gone above and beyond even just a small amount, I would have left the store a much happier customer–perhaps not a raving, satisfied customer but not a customer who warns everyone he knows to shop elsewhere.
The second company, on the other hand, had no obligation to me and yet bent over backwards to have things done earlier than promised, reordered product so that items could be swapped out, and was very careful to make sure that I was satisfied. The one company has earned my respect and repeat business as well as recommendation while the other company has earned my distaste and adamant warnings.
