I’ve been having a problem with my home security system that has got me thinking about customer service given to long term customers. Specifically, our current system is giving false alarms (usually in the middle of the night, thank you very much) and now apparently can’t connect to the monitoring station. I’ve got a service call scheduled for tommorow, but my point is, I’ve been a customer for about seven years - in that time the alarm company has never offered me any incentive, or even opportunity to upgrade my system. While I might not necessarily take them up on the offer, surely the new systems being installed are better than what I got seven years ago. Shouldn’t I have an opportunity to take advantage of that? Another way of looking at this is, rather than have my current system repaired, I could call up Brinks and have a new system installed. Brinks is constantly running specials, and with tomorrow’s repair call billed at $90/hr plus the cost of parts, I could probably have a new Brinks system for comparable money.
A better example might be my DSL service. I first got it probably 5-6 years ago. Throughout that whole time, the software that came with the modem was pretty buggy - it would often fail to launch and would just get hung up. I think I called once and asked if they had any new software or a patch and was told they didn’t. It wasn’t until we got a new machine running Windows 2000 that we got new software, and then only because the old software wasn’t compatible with 2000. It just seems that sometime during the 5 or so years, that better software/modem combinations were probably introduced, and that new customers were probably getting better stuff than I was, despite the fact that I had been loyal for so long.
One company that does this right IMHO, is Sprint. They have a program where existing customers can get a discount on a new phone depending on their length of time with Sprint - $75 off for 18 month customers and $150 off for 2 year customers, something like that. This puts existing customers on equal footing with new customers who are always given discounts on phones when they sign up for new service.
Maybe I’m being unreasonsable, but it seems to me that loyal customers should be treated at least as well as brand new ones. Thoughts?
You would think so, but you can add Dish Network to the list of companies that don’t give a fig about customer retention.
When we moved, it was going to cost $99 to have them move my account and install a new dish on the house, and I had to bring the existing two year-old receivers. But new customers get free installation and brand-new equipment. Needless to say, I canceled the account in my name and my partner opened a new account in his so we got the free (and fairly complicated) install and new PVR boxes with 4x the disk space.
The sad thing was that the Dish rep couldn’t grasp this when I canceled my account. “But all you have to move is the receiver!” Yeah, but by closing this account and opening a new one, I didn’t have to move anything to get new stuff.
But there is a catch. The $75 off is with a renewed 1-year contract and the $150 is with a renewed 2-year contract. But at least it does put you on approximate equal footing with new customers, which is good, despite how evil cell-phone contracts are.
I don’t remember ever being offered incentives to stay with a particular company for anything. I have on a couple of occasions called my local phone provider and gotten them to issue some temporary credits based on offers from competitors, but they’ve certainly never offered me anything on their own initiave as an incentive to either keep my business or change my service. There’s been I think a shift in how businesses operate, away from customer retention and to customer acquisition and product upselling.
I agree that long-time bill-payin’ customers should get a break here and there. That is why when I start getting bombarded by “great offers” from other providers I will call mine up and ask what they can do. I just called Directv about this and now I’m getting $10 off my bills for 6 mos.
There are little incentives most companies can provide. You simply have to ask and be persistent.
Mobile phone providers are some of the worst at this. I’m continually amazed that it’s simpler and easier to just throw my phone away at the end of every year and get a new contract (with a free brand-new phone and a better rate plan) than it is to get any concession or discount out of my current provider.
They give awesome deals out in desperate bids to get new customers, but they don’t seem to try to keep the customers they have at all.
Slight hijack, but I think if you have company A’s internet access, you shouldn’t see any of company A’s advretisements online. They should be omitted for quicker access to webpages.
Yes, though. If you subscribe to a thing for a while, you should get discounts/special treatment. I sware, if I ever run a business or get put in charge of one in my day, I’ll do just that. I’m SURE I’ll have shareholders asking for my head.
Customer service is a funny thing. gotpasswords, your story is exactly the type of thing I was thinking about.
How pathetic is it that this is my best customer service story: Once I was eating at a Boston Market with a girlfriend. During the meal she reached over and swiped my cornbread. Five minutes later, the manager was doing his normal walk around asking how everything was. I said it was great, but that my cornbread had been swiped (for those not familiar with Boston Market, it is the type of place where you get one piece of cornbread with your meal, no refils). 30 seconds later, the manager came back with a new cornbread for me. Total cost to Boston Market - maybe a nickel; amount of goodwill created - tremendous.
We fired our alarm system company because after 15 years, they wanted some outrageous money for a simple service call. Like to replace batteries or something. It pissed us off so bad we told them to stuff it.