Reward your better-paying customers… NOT!

You know that subtle little arrow embedded inbetween the “E” and the “x” in the FedEx logo?  

Well it just turned 90 degrees clockwise for me — straight down.

What could prompt such a fickle customer reaction? Almost anything — customers are human, and humans are tuned to the radio station WIIFM (what’s in it for me?)

In this case, I forgot my eyeglasses in the vehicle I left at the shop late last night.

No problem, I checked with the service manager and he said he’d be happy to overnight them to me at my client site in another state — but he didn’t have any forms or boxes.

Appreciative of his help, I said “no problem — I’ll phone it in and have them bring a box and completed paperwork to make it easy” for him.

I was on the phone with 800-GoFedEx for 5 or 10 minutes providing an account number, the shop contact info, my client contact info, etc. when I heard shocking news.

It would work just fine if I wanted FedEx Ground.

But not overnight with Express!

It doesn’t make sense for me to chew the customer service rep’s ear that this made no sense… the cheaper service was easier for the customer but the more expensive overnight service made me do more work??

Indeed, I had to spend another 15 minutes with a technical support rep to accomplish what I could have done immediately with the ground service.

Shocking — clearly the CMO and COO haven’t walked in the customer shoes.

Today’s takeaway: where are your customers giving you feedback about matters that (left alone) could prompt their defection?