Seems strange: you get more smiles and more satisfaction with a hamburger purchase at a fast food restaurant than you do with a half-million-dollar implementation of a new CRM system for your company. For every zero you add to the purchase price, you can almost feel the satisfaction level drop by a similar amount.
Service industry people become detached from the customer lifetime value – and if you’re helping someone with their computer, you had better think about the lifetime value of that customer, not the current transaction.
CEO’s have fired ad agencies and other vendors over the smallest of issues. This happens because they aren’t feeling appreciated on a regular basis. Real appreciation, not a mass mailing. “We appreciate your business” followed by hold music and a transfer to an offshore call center doesn’t really show appreciation. “We appreciate your patience while we try to lower our costs” would be more truthful.
Try to find someone working at Starbucks that’s going to give you a bad attitude – you’ll be hard pressed to do so. They get lifetime value. Why does it have to be limited to just baristas and burger joints? Provide it to your customers today. TODAY, not after your next company offsite meeting.