How do you treat your best customers?
Once again, the real world provides wonderful lessons.
My wife calls to tell me to cancel a credit card--the bank had raised our interest rate to 30% "because we didn't carry a balance." Our primary card is at 9%, so 30% isn't going to cut it. I call the bank (which I won't identify , but if you guess Citibank, well, let me just say you're an incredibly good guesser) and they tell me they are sorry to lose me as a "terribly valuable" customer after 20 years. Would I consider staying if they lowered the rate to 7.9% for six months?
Put aside the financial aspects of this decision. How should I feel knowing that I am a "terribly valuable" customer but they were raising my rates to 30%? They could have offered me the Taj Mahal and I would not remain a customer.
This is the world of credit card companies, cable companies and phone companies. Never treat your best customers like your best customers. Give your new customers better rates and keep milking your loyal customers for all you can get.
Sad way to run a business. But then again, when law firms seek new business, how many of them do the very same thing?
At some point loyal customers are going to respond like I did: if my loyalty only matters when I complain, "cancel the damn account."
Great point, Patrick! I was reading a listserv complaint about someone who was billed 0.15 hours by an attorney for depositing and reviewing his client's payment. Talk about disrespectful service! (Can you imagine the potential loop that would create if the attorney carried on with it...Send bill to client, client pays bill, review client payment, send bill to client for review, etc., etc.)
So, in a time when many attorneys are trying to save money and find ways to make more money, what are some ways you would suggest for attorneys to keep costs down for their clients? Cutting overhead? Offering unbundled services? Discounts?
Would love to hear your thoughts!
