Companies Treat Prospects Better Than Their Customers

Today I received a 0% interest on all transfers for the next 12 months from my own bank. I have a small balance that I wanted to transfer from my existing account to a new one if I could get the 0% offer. Ah, but wait. Only new customers can get this deal.

Several weeks ago, my broadband provider was offering 3 months free if I signed up in the next 30 days. I called up asking for the same deal since I never received such an offer. I was a five-year customer who had lived through the initial and sometimes rocky launch of the service. They had never given me anything for remaining a faithful customer.

Do you think prospects are getting better treatment than paying customers?

In all fairness to the broadband provider, they did agree to give me the offer AFTER I complained in writing.

In the case of the broadband provider, there was no mention in the literature that this offer was not available to existing customers. (Frankly, they could have at least taken existing customers off of the mailing list.)

But mentioning that the deal is only available to prospects and not paying customers doesn’t help the situation. It only confirms that the company decided to give prospects a better break than customers.

Is this an imbalance that needs correction? Or am I alone in this perception? How should marketers deal with this situation? Let us have your comments.

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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