What is the value of a loyal customer?

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Recently I got a cut-off notice from T-Mobile. For non-payment of $106.10. Apparently I didn’t receive 2 bills, and if it’s not in front of me, it doesn’t register that the bill hasn’t been paid.

Let’s think about this for a moment. I have 3 accounts and 2 devices with T-Mobile. I give them around $150/month, not to mention the purchase of the android phone and Tab for hundreds of dollars. And, I have never, ever, missed a payment. In the 5 years they’ve been my service provider. And I paid my other 2 T-Mobile bills. Just one account and bill were problematic. Did that pattern of payments not point to a possible problem?

I bet that there are ‘bad’ customers who don’t pay their bills. But don’t the folks at T-Mobile have some sort of bell that goes off when a GOOD customer hasn’t paid?

Wouldn’t it have been nice to receive a courtesy call reminding me? Then I could have called them, found out how much I owed, discussed the problem, and all would have been handled – as it was – in minutes. Instead, I got a shut-off notice that makes me feel like a delinquent.

When I discussed it with the service rep, she agreed with me that there should be a separate category for ‘good’ customers who didn’t pay for a month (in my case, I didn’t get two bills). She said she got calls all the time from angry loyal customers with notices such as mine. And really, was she willing to lose a customer for $106.10?

While I’m at it, let me express my extreme annoyance that T-Mobile has no flexibility. I purchased the Android phone with them, the month it came out. A few months later, the Tablet came out and I bought that also. They do the same thing (minus the ‘phone’ function). I called T-Mobile and asked if I could trade to a different phone with different capability rather than duplicate capability. No, they said. You have another 22 months left in your phone contract. But I don’t care about the payment or terms – I just wanted additional, or different, capability rather than have duplicate functionality. Nope.

My complaint today is that loyal customers should be given some flexibility and courtesy. If I can be loyal, I deserve more than a delinquency notice, or a simple ‘no’ when I could use an additional choice.

For the duplication issue, can’t they have a category for folks who purchased several devices so they can switch and swap within the boundaries of what they pay for?

For the payment issue, we’re just dealing with a computer that sets off an ‘alarm’ and sends a nasty notice. Can’t they send that alarm to customer service folks to call and find out what the problem is also??

Just asking.

sd

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Sharon-Drew Morgen
I'm an original thinker. I wrote the NYT Bestseller Selling with Integrity and 8 other books bridging systemic brain change models with business, for sales, leadership, communications, coaching. I invented Buying Facilitation(R) (Buy Side support), How of Change(tm) (creates neural pathways for habit change), and listening without bias. I coach, train, speak, and consult companies and teams who seek Servant Leader models.

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