Do You Force Customers To Quit

Insurance policy of both my car and scooter was about to expire.

I'd sold off the scooter. So when my insurance agent called me to renew it's policy, I ignored it saying the new owner will take care of it.

After a couple of weeks, when my car went for road tax payment I realised that it's insurance policy had expired. Actually my insurance agent did call me to renew car's policy but I'd inadvertently ignored his reminder thinking it was for the 'sold scooter'.

Red-tape that followed was inevitable. The procedure explained to me by the insurance agent was:

Take the scooter to the insurance company.
They'll inspect it before issuing the policy
They'll charge fine for 'discontinuation'.

Making the job 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult for the customer. 

While the insurance agent refused to followup with the company, the road tax agent came to my rescue saying "don't worry". May be the former was lacking motivation due to 'smallness' of business while the latter was interested in acquiring a new customer: Market development strategy as the jargon goes in management world! Theory of relativity!

The road tax agent got the insurance done from another company. Everything home delivered at just ten percent charge of the total official receipt amount.

In fact the policy issued by the competitor was priced at almost thirty percent discount.

The indifferent procedure of the previous insurance company and the behavior of it's agent (the first touch-point as it's brand ambassador) to take the customer for granted costed them business.

The Cost-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ) to them was not only the loss of business but also a permanent loss of customers. I said loss of customers because bad-mouth publicity by every dissatisfied customer takes away more than one potential ones.

What's the learning?

More than the hard quality itself of your offering, it's the lack of soft quality, your indifference, that forces customers to call it a Quit!

So better to be-aware of behavior!!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

In-a-problem ? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Customer or Custo-Mer ? 
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Do you keep curing your brand ? 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Less With More And More Gets Sore
Should one care for value ? 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
The Business Of Businesses
That's how some business partnerships work
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
That's How Morons Work
Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

Who comes first: Current customer or New customer?

Sometimes companies tend to forget remedying 'lost sales' in the 'current-market-current-product-current-customer' quadrant in their enthusiastic quest to get 'additional sales numbers' by trying to acquire new customers with new offering in current or new market.

It is like pouring in a pot from top that has a hole in the bottom.

I had two cellphone SIM-cards: one from company-A, the other from company-B.

After exercising 'mobile-portability-right' to switch over from company-B, I received not less than 8 calls from them. 

Half the calls received were from their marketing officer with an 'attractive' offer to switch over company-A SIM to (his own) company-B. Perhaps he was ignorant that I had surrendered my other (company-B) card due to their unsatisfactory service. Their market-intelligence' seemed to be smart though to have list of the competitor's clients.

Balance half calls were from their customer-care officer to find out why I had 'switched' from company-B. Calls were backed by an apology letter.

So on one hand marketing was busy working on acquiring new customers while customer-care department was making a failed attempt to 'retain' current one. On the other hand operations department seemed to complacently (mis-)handle existing customers inadvertently forcing them to quit.

No doubt that balancing the act of working on current and new/diversified offering, (for) current and new customers, and (in) current and new markets is really a complex and an intelligent process. 

But retaining a 'current customer' and hence 'current sales' is relatively a far easier and economically more viable strategy that should be perfected by plugging loopholes/deficiencies in services before applying 'Penetration', 'Product/market development', and 'Diversification' strategies.

While the 'current customer' provides cues for loopholes, the later strategies to acquire 'new customer' need at least 10 times more investment (in time, efforts and money) than the former. As a student, I had often felt disgusted when photocopier shop near my college used to keep my 200-pages running-order on hold intermittently in order to service a single-copy customer (jumping the queue).

The former strategy is a play in current known-terrain. A satisfied current customer is more likely to be a brand ambassador providing leads to prospective customers in new terrain (environment).

Doesn't a bird-in-hand need to be cared for before the two in the bush as goes the old saying?