On December 17, 2013 Bloomberg Businessweek published an article titled, “Proof That It Pays to Be America’s Most-Hated Companies.” The theme of the article is that big companies don’t care if you like them and have little incentive to care.
As Bloomberg said, “The companies you hate are making plenty of money. In fact, the scorned tend to perform better than the companies you like.” They even had a statistical analysis graph that showed the higher the customer satisfaction score the lower the 2013 stock return.
They surmised it isn’t worth it to try and make customers happy and many customers are in a bind because they may own the stock (in mutual funds or retirement plans) of the companies they hate.
So, what does that mean for us with small businesses or for those in large firms who sell by building relationships? Nothing!
We can’t even come close to emulating the firms that put us on hold, have us punch 17 buttons to try and connect to a live person and cut us off repeatedly. If we treated our clients and customers like that they’d find another option in a caffeine-infused heartbeat.
Once again we have evidence that being a cog in a large company’s machine isn’t the best experience in life. Can you imagine making decisions that say, “Screw the customer, it makes us more money?” It’s a lot better to do the right thing and benefit. Makes sleeping a lot easier.
“Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.” Don Henley