Richard J. George, Ph.D.

New Customers and Poor Service

September 3, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Columnist and author James Surowiecki believes a fixation on new customers is ultimately the root cause of poor customer service levels across corporate America. How does a company keep a healthy balance between addressing new and existing customers?      [more...]

An excellent article. Delighting customer service needs to be a significant component of a company's marketing strategy, not an add-on nor an expense item as viewed by many companies. This churning of customers, besides being expensive, makes no sense. Consider a fisherman who catches a big fish. What's the likelihood of throwing it back in search of another fish? However, the action of most companies in the pursuit of new customers to the exclusion of delighting existing customers is analogous to our fishing example.

I am reminded of the words of the late Sam Walton, "A customer is not a customer until he becomes a repeat customer." Customer delight is a function of a good interaction and a good outcome. It is more than smiles and answering the phone on the third ring. It is a system that regularly and routinely delights customers, providing a significant differential advantage. Done correctly, current customers will recruit new customers and everyone wins.