How late is “late” to keep a customer loyal?

Today I received a phone call from Comcast representative responsible for our street (you know, those guys who knock on your door and offer you stuff:)). He told me that he received a list of people who are scheduled for disconnect and was interested to know whether I will reconsider my decision if he gives me discount on the rates and “more movies”. Too late!

I was Comcast customer for more than 3 years – started with basic TV and Internet and upgraded about year and a half ago to premium channels and DVR. Of course with the upgrade also my bill grew:) The only times I heard from Comcast for those 3 years where when I had problems with the service, and the only “offers” I got from them were from this type: “If you don’t want to pay for support on issues, you can pay few bucks more per month, else it will cost you $99 to get technician to your home.” At the time I thought: “OK, if I pay $2/month I will be covered for the next 4 years and I can call the technician every day:)”, and signed up. Don’t understand me wrong! It is not that I was unhappy with the service but at some point of time I got the feeling that I am not getting enough value for the money I am paying.

Few of my neighbors switched to Verison FiOS and sent mail to the neighborhood how happy they are. Few weeks ago Verison guy stopped at my house (you know, one of those guys who knock… you get it:)) and threw few numbers for the same service as Comcast + 1 more HD box + watching recordings in every room + more premium channels for the half of the price I was paying for the first 6 months and $20 less for the remaining of the year. In few words – he convinced me. Of course you should not forget the installation fee that will offset the $20 for the second half of the year but my saving was 1/4 of what I was currently paying and I got more goodies like premium channels and additional HD box.

When I called Comcast to cancel the existing service the lady was very friendly (I had problem with their callback service that really frustrated me but this on the side), and just asked me whether I will reconsider if she offers me same options for lower price. She wasn’t pushy which I liked, but she tried to keep me as customer as much as possible. Normally I am hard on my decisions and don’t look back and wonder “what if”, but after the call from Comcast today I asked myself: “What if I received a call after New Year, and Comcast offered me to upgrade my service and pay less money?” Would I consider Verison then? I don’t think so. Normally I don’t want to go through the troubles of having some cable guy at home, drilling my walls just to save few hundreds.

But the country is in financial crisis. My goal is to keep my standard of living but pay less money for it. Goal for businesses should be to keep their customers so they have uninterrupted stream of revenue. It may not be obvious but the solution is simple – if companies (or their employees) think proactively what their customers want, and act proactively to offer it, we, the customers will be happy and stay loyal. Isn’t it that what companies need – to keep existing customers and acquire new ones? In case of Camcast is really simple. If they gave me a call few weeks ago and offered me what they offered me today I wasn’t going to switch to Verison.

Here is what I would do if I was the guy who called me this morning:

1. Every January I would call every one of my customers to wish him or her New Year and chat about their experience in the past year. Why January? For two reasons:
   • After the shopping spree made during the holiday season, people start rethinking their finances, and
   • Tax season starts in January, and people start thinking about their finances even more
2. I will have handy all the promotions my company offers, and will go over those with my clients (yes, I would think of those people as clients and not just customers). We will work together to find a way to increase the value of the deal; for both sides. This doesn’t mean I have to give them money back. Can be rate discount, or free service for 3 or 6 months, or they may want to subscribe for more but just have no time to call our customer service. And it is not that companies don’t offer discounts – Comcast always has promotions for new subscribers, why don’t they extend those to the existing ones?
3. Two-three months after that I will call them to ask whether they are happy with the service and whether I can help with something else.

Next year I will do the same and the year after and the year after, as long as I work for this company. If the year is bad (think recession like now) then I will be even stricter. I will not wait to hear that my customer goes to the competition before I remember that he or she is MY customer.

And one more thing: if Verison forgets about me by next year, I will switch back to Comcast… or somebody else, who knows :) We, the customers are the one who drive the economy, and should demand that companies pay attention what we want.