Back in the 1990’s, in the days when you actually paid for long distance phone calls, I called my telephone company salesperson (when you also had a sales rep not a call-center person) about my rates. I had heard an ad for their company that featured a rate much lower than mine. He told me, “They don’t pay us to stay in touch with existing customers, they only pay us to generate new business.” He ended up dropping my rate in half and it took my initiative to do so.
Fast forward to 2014. I see TV ads for ATT that are offering a multi-phone plan that’s noticeably less expensive than what we pay. So, I call and within three minutes I’ve reduced my bill by 20%.
So why can’t ATT (or any of the others) treat their existing customers the same way they treat new customers, without the customer having to take action?
It would seem to me that you want to reward loyal customers to keep them from moving to the competition. Provide great service in order to keep your customers and generate referrals.