Look After Your Long-Term Customers

I'm sure you've heard it said that acquiring a new customer cost more than selling another product or service to an existing customer right?

Well, I want to share with you my little experience with purchasing a new mobile phone last weekend and, help you not to make the same mistake!

Basically, I have been a faithful customer with Orange in the UK for about 15 years now and during this period I had three mobile phones with them including my mums and my husbands.  

Anyway, in the last month or so, my mobile phone contract ended and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I didn't hurry to upgrade.  But, last Saturday, I decided it was time for an upgrade and, in terms of personality types, I'm the Socializer or the Sunshine Yellow if you've done Insights … basically, we like gadgets and once we've made a decision to have a new one, there is no time like the present!

So, I call Orange and ask about upgrading to a Blackberry since I want email on the go … not sure this is a good idea yet though.  But I'm told by the sales person that the upgrade would cost me £30 (which I really don't mind paying) and I would remain on my current contract of 700 minutes and some. 

Now, I know I can talk - afterall, I am "The Socializer" but not even I need 700 minutes!  

And you've got to understand guys, after being with the same company for almost 15 years, I really was reluctant to leave so I decided to take a trip down town - as we say in the UK - and take a look at my options.

My little girl and I walked into the Orange shop in the Galleries in Bristol and there was one customer browsing but the shop was dead and the two sales guys were standing around chatting, paying me little attention and didn't even ask if I needed help.  So, I browsed around the shop for a while and after a few minutes left, unnoticed by the two chatting sales guys.

We walked into the 3G mobile store where we were greeted with a happy sales team who soon came to my aid and helped me make an informative decision to purchase a new mobile phone from them.

Now, I will tell you this … Mrs Gadget person here, did her homework online before she left home so I knew what I was looking for … Blackberry or the Nokia X-Series from Three.  And, "hey" I can hear you saying, "why didn't you get an iPhone?"  Simple really … only one mobile network offers the iphone in the UK at the moment and, I didn't want to have to romance with them for 18 months!

So, to cut a long story short, purchased my phone and called Orange the next day to ask them to start the process of switching my old number to my new network so I could cancel the contract.

The salesperson immediately said, "you've been with us a very long time, why are you leaving?"  So, I gave him the story, told him how much I was paying for my new service, to which he responded … "we would have given you a Blackberry handset free of charge, 400 minutes, unlimted landline calls, 100 text messages, etc, etc, etc for £15 per month." 

You know when you get that sunk feeling that you've been "had" ….

I didn't!!

Nope, Orange had their chance and they blew it! 

They waited until I shopped for a better deal and then told me that as a longstanding customer, they would have given me royal treatment!  They should have offered me this package the minute I picked up the telephone the first time to ask about an upgrade.  In fact, only weeks earlier, they sent me a voice mail to say "congratulations, we have checked your moblile phone usage and you're on the right package." 

"Lies!"

I hardly used 300 minutes per month for the past few months since my friend moved back to Nigeria.

The truth is though, I love my new phone and so far, the 3G network has been good but the message I really want to get across here is that …

… it really isn't worth playing games with your long-term customers. 

It isn't just my custom Orange have lost, but who do you think I'm going to be recommending when people ask questions about which mobile phone network to use?  And, if you consider that I pay £35 per month for the priviledge of having a mobile phone, over 15 years that's £6300 … not dollars, pounds!!  Doesn't sound a lot of money but how many other customers did Orange lose on Saturday because of the their tardy customer service?

Now, there's something to think about.

Until next time, good sales.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!