The Outcome of Your Customer’s End-to-End Journey: Happy Ending or Dead End?

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”

Verizon Wireless bills for their service a month in advance—a practice that obviously benefits them. Still, I’d never had an issue with that and had dutifully paid them my entire time with Verizon.

I had all of our phone numbers ported to Sprint when I was only nine days into my pre-paid month. I didn’t really think about it because I expected that—as Sprint had done when I had left them twelve years earlier—Verizon would simply prorate my bill and reimburse me for the remainder of the month—about 22 days. I assumed they would round up the price by a day in their favor, but had no issue with that. However, it turned out that the next bill I got from Verizon suggested they had never credited my account, which was odd. I figured they might reconcile that discrepancy later on, once they had sorted out all of the contract termination fees. But just to check, I called Verizon Customer Service. There was no mistake. Nope. Verizon was keeping it all.

Adding insult to injury, the Verizon employee with whom I spoke—just like my local guy—was nice, helpful, and genuinely empathetic. So much so that he candidly shared with me that he agreed this Verizon Wireless policy was bogus and unfair. Should that make me feel better? It didn’t, and it went downhill from there. Was I cranky? Sure. So, that evening, I tweeted:

“@verizon I understood I’d owe $950+ as early-term penalty to cancel, but you're keeping almost a whole month of advance payment, too?”

To which I received a quick and, once again, quite empathetic reply from a VZW Support employee:

@RonnieBattista It breaks my heart to hear you are thinking of leaving us. It sounds like there is a lot to this situation. Follow & DM ^NK

It broke that person’s heart? Wow! I mean, I lost like $150 on what’s clearly a #firstworldproblem, but they were heartbroken. How could I not engage in a direct message with them? So I did and, after I had explained the situation, the answer I got was this:

I see, Ronnie. When you port, the line is suspended with billing until the end of the billing cycle, since you have already paid for that month in advance. This not only gives the port time to complete, but also allows you to make any last minute changes until the end of the billing cycle, when the system automatically disconnects it. Does that make sense? *GT

Jan 19

The truth is: it doesn’t make sense at all, because this is a red herring. Once my numbers were ported to Sprint on that same day, there were no further changes to make. It was done. Finito. Over. As it is millions of times a month when people switch. Even if this situation were to happen, it would far more likely be an exception rather than the rule. Verizon Customer Service’s deceptive claim—surprise, surprise—bestowed my money on Verizon Wireless.

So, is all of this about $150? I’d make that back in two months with Sprint anyway, so what’s the big deal? True enough. But a few things about my experience of the end of my Verizon Wireless journey stuck out for me. First, through all of this, the employees I dealt with were all good, if not exemplary. I had no human interaction that wasn’t pleasant. Second, they all agreed with me, but were not empowered to remedy the situation. It seemed the only one I could point a finger at was Verizon Wireless itself. But this process actually made me feel like a finger was pointing at me. Verizon was Michael Corleone, and I was Fredo the traitor. “Fredo, you’re nothing to me now. You’re not a brother, you’re not a friend. I don’t want to know you or what you do.” Here’s a kiss on the cheek. I’m keeping your money!

Now, while I’m not sure, I expect that Verizon isn’t the only company doing this sort of thing. I imagine that—like many of the airlines that play off each other when adding new service fees—other wireless companies might be doing the same thing. What this experience did was confirm that Verizon Wireless made sure the door hit my ass on the way out.

I remember that feeling. It brought back a memory of customer-experience whiplash that I had many years ago.

“I Want You. I Need You. But There Ain’t No Way I’m Ever Gonna Love You.”

In the Summer of 1997, when I was on my honeymoon in Hawaii, my new bride and I took one of the heavily promoted timeshare tours of the newly opened resort at which we were staying in Kauai. The free parasailing voucher we received as a gift incented our eventual decision to take the 90-minute tour, using our vacation time to hear their pitch. We figured it was worth learning about, so we decided to take the tour. Our tour guide was lovely. I’ve forgotten his name, but I’ll call him Javier because—with his soft, soothing accent and disarming smile—he sounded and looked a bit like Javier Bardem. Within a half hour, he was like family—joking and really making us feel like we were special. But as the hours ticked by, the tour seemed to be going on much longer than promised. This was becoming like the “3-hour tour” that inadvertently ended with the Skipper and Gilligan leading a fight for their survival.

We had requested up front, repeatedly, that they give us some idea about what the timeshare would cost. They had already taken some basic financial information about us and assured us it would be in our ballpark. When, hours later, Javier eventually did get to the number, it was a complete non-starter. A grand-slam, out-of-the-ballpark non-starter.

I recall this story because of what happened at the end. I appreciate what hard work it is for people like Javier to sell such properties, and he was great at making the case. But when, after countless attempts, he made his last appeal that we sign up and we politely declined—as we had repeatedly up to this point—he so abruptly stopped, looked us in the eye, scowled, and walked away that it was shocking. The warm, hand on my shoulder, jovial Javier we had bonded with just disappeared. No goodbye, no “sorry this didn’t work out, but thanks for your time.” Nothing. Javier simply got up and walked away from us. Then, a woman came up to us, put the parasailing voucher on the table, gave us a similar smirk, and walked away. Had they forgotten that we were still actually their guests at the same property?  Apparently so, because our customer journey with them just ended.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of each of these customer-journey stories is simple:

• A previous customer is a future customer. Customers are human beings, and they experience life-long journeys with companies. Case in point: I left Sprint on good terms. I spent twelve years at Verizon, then I came back to Sprint. As I’ve said, I didn’t want to leave Verizon, but I did. People change. Circumstances change. Sam Walton is famously quoted as saying, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the Chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Walton is absolutely right. Your customers can fire you, but they can also hire you back.
• Not every customer who leaves does so happily. There will always be some customers that you lose—customers who, for one reason or another, you’ll never get back. But do you know who they are? Is it clear why they left? Have you asked? Is there a chance that you can win their business back one day, even if that might be years down the road? If that were the case, should you treat them better or differently from a seriously disgruntled customer who will never, ever return? Companies that have successful win-back marketing teams take the time to make sure they are tailoring their messages to the wants and needs of lapsed customers. Obviously, better customer service was not something that would have gotten me to rethink Verizon. My decision to leave was purely a financial one.
• How you treat customers when they walk out your door impacts their decision to walk back in through it ever again. People remember the last thing you did to them. How you handle a breakup with a customer is not unlike what happens when a romantic relationship ends. When your customer becomes a former customer, will you act like Javier, the jilted lover? Will you impose undue financial or process burdens on those who choose to leave your embrace? Or will you take a more “If you love someone, set them free” approach, making the separation one that is bittersweet, but not unpleasant?

I would love to hear stories from others who have parted ways with a company and had a memorably good or bad experience.