Many entrepreneurs treat their customers only as a source of revenue. Once they have sold their product to them, they then devote their energies to find the next new customer, rather than on delighting their existing customers. This is why most businesses spend so much more money on sales as compared to customer service.
This maybe fine in the short term, but your loyal customers are far more valuable than new ones, so please don’t neglect them.
Here’s a simple solution which will force you to put your faithful customers first !
Offer subscriptions which need to be renewed every month ( rather than those which automatically auto-renew) ! This will keep your Customer Service Department on its toes . Dissatisfied customers can easily stop renewing the subscription , and this is a great way of monitoring how happy customers are.
Excessive churn is a leading indicator that’s something wrong with the product, and the users who drop out will be able to tell you what they are unhappy about , and even help you to fix this.
On the other hand , many businesses trap and trick users by getting them to sign subscriptions which lock them in for many years . This means that unhappy customers aren’t respected by the customer service team, because they can’t leave ! Many users resent this , because they have paid a lot of money upfront, and aren’t getting the value which they paid for .
While long term subscriptions may generate a lot of upfront revenue for the company , this is not in either the customer’s long term best interests, or yours because unhappy customers who are trapped will complain vocally about your product !