Too little, too late
I’m about to start getting some calls from Telstra/Bigpond.
I’ve been a Bigpond customer for almost 8 or 9 years now. I’ve been pretty loyal as a customer and have stuck with them in spite of issues and poor service at times. But, I won’t be getting a customer service call because I’ve been a loyal customer.
Nope, I’ll be getting a call because I’m leaving Bigpond, and based on past experience, I’ll be getting a call from some guy tasked with such things to offer me a better deal, a discount here and there, an incentive to stay. It’s almost predictable. And it’s too little, too late.
If I had a call from Bigpond every 6 or 12 months to let me know that they had new deals and could save me money and help me more, etc., I would be an even more loyal and long-term customer, but instead they seem to wait until you leave to suddenly come up with deals and discounts. I understand why they do that, but it’s a stupid way to do business. Why wait until you lose a customer in order to try and keep them?! It’s a knee-jerk, reactionary way to do customer service, and it’s just dumb.
I’m trying out iiNet for a season, and I have to say that so far I’m pretty impressed with their customer service. That just may be because I was signing up, but their communication on every level has been sharper and friendlier than any of my recent connections with the great behemoth of Telstra. I guess we’ll see…