Calcified relationships are useless

I recently wrote about leaving T-Mobile for AT&T. I did it largely because I want to get an iPhone, although my employer's significant discount with AT&T definitely helped.

But I've been thinking about why I left T-Mobile and what they could have done to keep me. As I wrote in my last post on this issue, the customer service rep was really nice when I called to tell them I was switching. The language he used made me feel special. He talked about what a great customer I had been for 7 years and how if I chose to come back, they would really take care of me.

It got me thinking: where were they for all of those years when I wasn't calling to tell them I was leaving? I will admit that I have noticed - over the past year or so - that when I call them, the experience is quite pleasing. But that isn't really enough. The problem is that my relationship with them never changed. I put in more years. I remained loyal, but they never acknowledged that in any way. Only when I called to dump them, did they express their love and show appreciation for my loyalty. Too late.

Think about it. Relationships either change or they end. The change doesn't have to be dramatic. But long lasting relationships often get the feel of a very comfortable old piece of clothing that gets softer with age. Where you know its every wrinkle and it seems to know just how to fit itself onto your body. Or an old bottle of wine or an aged whiskey that doesn't radically change flavor but seems to settle into its existing flavor with more grace and dignity over time.

The value of a long-lasting relationship is huge (when the relationship doesn't suck). But only if it acquires some greater breadth or depth. Otherwise it is calcified and its uselessness screams out until you fix or end it.

My relationship with T-Mobile never changed. They never acknowledged my loyalty in any way. They never behaved differently towards or with me when I was a 7 year customer than when I was a new customer. What that says is that they don't care. It's not a real relationship.

How could they have created a real changing relationship? Here are just some ideas:
* An "anniversary" present on the anniversary of my joining T-Mobile with a gift that increased in value every year
* Every now and then just sending an email, a text or calling me and letting me know - for no apparent reason - that they really appreciated my x years of business
* Giving me a special customer service line, good for long-standing customers only
* Having special in-store events for long-standing customers

And so on. See, this is not hard. And some of these ideas are really cheap. But they would have made me feel really good. I don't know if they would have been effective at stopping me from getting an iPhone. But if they had really cared about me and really showed it, I probably would have gotten an iPhone and unlocked it for use with T-Mobile.

Relationships where one or more of the parties is human, change. Period. If you are a business and you want to have a relationship with a human customer, you should have a plan for this. How will you evolve the relationship over time? I think, perhaps, that many businesses either don't think about this issue at all, or, worse, think of customers as equipment that depreciates over time. But the opposite is true. Customers get more valuable over time. So make sure to have a customer lifecycle plan for managing this incredibly valuable asset.