Why customer experience matters

Here’s a true story on understanding your customers and why it is important to always consider their experience.

Every year for many years I have bought the same content planner, it’s not a special content planner, I just like it, it works for me. The first year I bought it I also bought a year’s subscription for support and content creation tools and ideas. I never used this, I didn’t feel it suited my business, it was quite pushy and aggressive.

I would also get lots of emails (sometimes several a day) from the company up-selling workshops, courses, webinars, coaching and so on. I did buy some courses and workshops, but ultimately found it wasn't for me.

I would also get emails setting me goals and setting me tasks, all very pushy and salesy. I found this quite stressful and didn’t feel this fitted with my style of marketing so I unsubscribed from receiving further emails.

But, I still liked the planner, so I would order it religiously each year, for many years. I would look forward to it arriving and I would religiously fill it our over twixmas when I do my planning for the next year. I recommended it to friends and gifted to others on many occasions.

Despite not feeling that the planner provider business was for me after trying their services, I continually returned every year without being prompted to purchase this product.

That was until this year. This year the planner has gone up from ￡30 to ￡97 plus P&P. The reason? It comes FREE a "curators kit worth ￡147 and somehow the planner and the "free" kit come in at a retail value of ￡585.

I don’t want any of this, so I messaged the company and asked how I buy the planner. And this is where the experience got really interesting. Remember at this point I still wanted to spend my hard earned money with them.

First I got TOLD OFF for unsubscribing from their emails and I would have known about all of the benefits included this year and was given a like to subscribe again.

I explained that it wasn’t for me and asked how to buy the planner.

Then I had a message expressing disbelief that I would find no benefit from these extras and basically implying that I didn’t have a serious business if these weren’t of use to me.

By now I didn’t want the planner or anything to do with this business, so I pointed out that I was disappointed that after being a loyal customer for so many years they hadn’t tried to address my concerns or provided me with a good exit experience.

The reply was that they hoped I would be able to find a more suitable planner for my needs!

Now I know we all need to make money, I know we are all facing increased costs. I know we have to change and adapt our products and services. But, we should never loose sight of how that makes your customer feel. Having brand loyalty, in any form is something you cannot pay for.

They don’t have to spend lots with you, sometimes they wont spend at all. A few years back I kept getting referrals from a hairdresser, we didn’t know her, she had never been a client, but she had heard good things about us as started to recommend us to her clients whilst they were having a hair cut. How amazing is that?

You never know, one of these small clients could lead to something big.

In the case of the planner company, I believe they have been short sighted, they put profit before performance. I doubt they will care or be worried, but they lost a loyal customer that will never return and no longer recommend, in my business, that would break my heart.