Are You Pissing Your Customers Off?

In a recent newsletter from John DiJulius, a customer service guru, author of What’s the Secret To Providing a World-Class Customer Experience, and NY Report contributor, he discusses a study published by the Harvard Business Review that examines the question: "If customer satisfaction creates loyalty, and loyalty produces profit, then why do so many companies infuriate their customers with contracts, hidden fees, fine print and unnecessary penalties?"    Companies such as banks, credit cards and cell phone carriers profit from customers who fail to understand the rules about minutes used, minimum balances, or overdrafts. DiJulius points out that these strategies may be profitable in the short term, but in the world of social media and the far reaches of user generated web content and blogs, public sentiment spreads like wildfire and can damage a company's reputation quickly. DiJulius goes on to detail the warning signs of customer-unfriendly practices in a company: o Do you have rules you want your customers to break because doing so generates profits? o Do you make it hard for customers to understand or abide by your rules? o Do you depend on contracts to prevent customers from defecting?   While companies that monopolize their markets may get away with company-centric policies, anyone of us with at least one competitor cannot afford to take our customers for granted.  Download a free preview of the article to see more unfair practice warning signs.