Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Loyalty and the consumer

During this past six months I've been down a long and winding road through good, bad and downright hellish experiences as an individual dealing with various corporations and their customer service departments. Between negotiating the roadblocks and minefields set up by Comcast while converting to hi-def, attempting to ensure that my husband's computer is protected by a good spam filter/virus protection via McAfee, and downloading/synching the latest IPhone version from Apple, I have determined that sometimes going into a small room and screaming curses to the heavens is not only justified, it's downright therapeutic.

In each of the cases with Apple and McAfee, I have discovered that even after much time and frustration with some of their people, there were still a number of really good people who were willing and able to help me. With Comcast, not so much and in fact - not at all. It truly is amazing how many people at Comcast really enjoy using and abusing what little power they have to ensure that I not only felt beaten up, but now I never want to deal with them again in my lifetime. Maybe that is their plan - make sure no one ever calls back because they know you won't help them.

This occasional blog is about loyalty and how people and companies actually benefit financially and emotionally when there is loyalty and trust between them. I can truly say that I am loyal to a number of companies that haven't always done everything right, but in the end they were there to fix things. We're all human, so you can expect some problems, but also expect a willingness to help. For us to effect change in our relationships (both business and personal), we have to be willing to work with each other. If you don't find that in a company then it's best to give them the message via a "cancel/termination" request. Then and only then will those companies get the message that being successful requires loyalty TO your customers, not just from them.

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