Don't Treat Your Best Customers Like Morons and Marks

I recently cancelled an online service. It was a monthly subscription model. A solid service. It's just that my needs had changed and I no longer needed it. I might have in the future, though, and figured I'd go back to it "if and when."

After checking the box that cancelled the service, I was pushed to a page that made me a "one-time" offer.

Re-activate my subscription immediately and I could lock in a monthly price that was 20% less than what I'd been paying. The same screen also told me this was a one time offer that would go away and never come back once I clicked away from the screen.

Can we all say "ick" together?!

I was annoyed. Why would this solid company with a good product treat a departing customer better than a loyal user?

This left a really bad taste in my mouth. So bad that, if and when I need a similar service, I'll now spend more time exploring this company's competition. And every time someone asks me about the service, I'll tell them the service was good, but also add in this story. Even though I have friends in the company (who are about to get an email from me, btw).

The same tactics used to be used by phone service and credit-card companies. You'd call up to cancel and they'd say, "oh wait a minute, will you stay if we lower your rate?" The tactic was so well known that many people would call automatically after a few months of usage and claim they were going to cancel simply as a vehicle to ensure they were getting the best rates available.

Note to businesses of all sizes, when you play games like this and what you are doing becomes public, it makes you look like a schmuck and it makes your loyal customers feel like morons and marks.

Don't treat your best customers like second class citizens. Treat them the way you'd want someone else to treat your mom (making some assumptions here, lol).

Your most devoted customers should get the best you have to offer without having to threaten departure or begging for something better.

Instead of offering a 20% discount to customer who threatens to leave after a year, offer a surprise 20% reduction to a customer who's been with you for a year. Talk about fueling word of mouth expansion. Do that and you'll create an army of super fans and evangelists who'll pre-sell everyone they meet with a killer story about the company who did them right and they'll stay with you forever.

Jonathan Fields is a serial-entrepreneur, business strategist, speaker and author. His latest book is Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel For Brilliance. Fields writes about performance-mindset, innovation, leading and entrepreneurship at JonathanFields.com