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When there's 1,000 happy customers and 1 unhappy one, what's the incentive to fix anything? Not being facetious, just pointing out the depressing nature of our

by Andrex 5y ago

When there's 1,000 happy customers and 1 unhappy one, what's the incentive to fix anything? Not being facetious, just pointing out the depressing nature of our reality. :/

ovao 5y ago
To answer the question in the plainest way: the possible revenue potential from the unhappy customer if turned to a satisfied recurring customer. This is really just a question of the opportunity cost, which can vary.
- tux1968 5y ago
  The depressing bit is that they can make a rational decision to weigh that cost against the amount of money it takes to keep people happy (vs doing nothing). Not that I support it, but they might be following the financially superior option. There's a lot of incentive to get that answer "correct", so I suspect it's currently working out in their favour, even though it sucks for those of us caught on the shitty side of that equation.
  - ovao 5y ago
    While true that economies in their various forms can form unsympathetic relationships between producers and consumers, it seems that, broadly speaking, producers who align more strongly with consumer satisfaction tend to ‘win’ and those who broadly speaking don’t tend to ‘lose’ on a long-term basis. To their credit, Apple seems to get this mostly right.
ctpide 5y ago
Commonly the 1 unhappy customer might tell his story to ten of their friends or thousands+ of readers online. Fixing customer problems (especially drastic ones) carries large incentives, because those single stories will actually be observed, while the 1000 happy customers won‘t be mentioned.
- ximeng 5y ago
  The company will only fix problems for customers with sufficient social reach in that case.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Case in point: 20 years ago DHL told me the credit cards I was waiting for in Santa Cruz, California were suddenly in transit to South Korea. As a one off it was a funny story. 10 years later they told me the computer that was sitting in a depot in London was on a ship back to the US. I'll keep telling those stories until everyone involved had long since retired.
JohnFen 5y ago
Most happy customers never tell many people how happy they are. Most unhappy customers will tell everyone how unhappy they are.

by Andrex 5y ago

When there's 1,000 happy customers and 1 unhappy one, what's the incentive to fix anything? Not being facetious, just pointing out the depressing nature of our reality. :/

ovao 5y ago

To answer the question in the plainest way: the possible revenue potential from the unhappy customer if turned to a satisfied recurring customer. This is really just a question of the opportunity cost, which can vary.

tux1968 5y ago
The depressing bit is that they can make a rational decision to weigh that cost against the amount of money it takes to keep people happy (vs doing nothing). Not that I support it, but they might be following the financially superior option. There's a lot of incentive to get that answer "correct", so I suspect it's currently working out in their favour, even though it sucks for those of us caught on the shitty side of that equation.
- ovao 5y ago
  While true that economies in their various forms can form unsympathetic relationships between producers and consumers, it seems that, broadly speaking, producers who align more strongly with consumer satisfaction tend to ‘win’ and those who broadly speaking don’t tend to ‘lose’ on a long-term basis. To their credit, Apple seems to get this mostly right.

ctpide 5y ago

Commonly the 1 unhappy customer might tell his story to ten of their friends or thousands+ of readers online. Fixing customer problems (especially drastic ones) carries large incentives, because those single stories will actually be observed, while the 1000 happy customers won‘t be mentioned.

ximeng 5y ago
The company will only fix problems for customers with sufficient social reach in that case.
vidarh 5y ago
Case in point: 20 years ago DHL told me the credit cards I was waiting for in Santa Cruz, California were suddenly in transit to South Korea. As a one off it was a funny story. 10 years later they told me the computer that was sitting in a depot in London was on a ship back to the US. I'll keep telling those stories until everyone involved had long since retired.

JohnFen 5y ago

Most happy customers never tell many people how happy they are. Most unhappy customers will tell everyone how unhappy they are.