Bad Profits Create Opportunities...

for your competitors.

On the same day that Delta Airlines announced their plans to penalize their customers with add-on fees for things like talking to their customer service staff...Priceline's ads touted no booking fees for THEIR customers.

Delta Airlines spokesperson said raising ticket prices has not been successful because there's also a need for Delta to remain competitive. So you're not going to raise tickets prices. Instead you're going to raise fees. Huh. I got it. A dollar increase in fees is so much less expensive than a dollar increase in ticket prices.

( I bet Delta leaders get fooled everytime with the playground question: which is heavier, a ton of steel or a ton of sand. )

Customers aren't fooled, though. Delta Airlines, and so many companies like them, create endless opportunities for their competitors by alienating, even insulting their customers, with bad profits ideas and condescending messages to justify them.

Their complaint over the need to remain competitive is a self-fulfilling nightmare. Their policies that create bad profits alienate customers and create opportunities for their competitors. Easy opportunities to differentiate themselves from the airlines.

We won't charge you an extra fee to merely use our service. There's no charge to talk to us. "Help" isn't a dirty word; we're here to help you.

Hey. No doubt, the airline industry is tough right now. ( For goodness sakes, 10% of domestic pilots are armed with handguns when they fly.) On the other hand, if it was possible to grow a business with the bad profits of added fees for your most loyal customers, for when they talk to your employees, doncha think the airlines would have turned their situation around now?

It's possible to compete and grow a business's revenues by focusing on generating good profits, building customer loyalty, generating high Net Promoter Scores, generating a lot of customer referrals, not wasting money with advertising, incentiving the staff not alienating them.

Lots, but not enough, of companies are doing this now. Ours was one. But there are plenty of others. Their customers love them, are loyal to them, are loved by the company, are loyal to their customers. And if only we could get the larger companies to take a risk and make a commitment to their employees and their customers. What a wonderful world....

* Bad Profits. It's a term coined by Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth. Here's what he says about bad profits:

Bad profits often boost short-term earnings; in the long run, they burn out employees and alienate customers. They also undermine growth by creating legions of detractors—customers who sully the firm’s reputation and switch to competitors at the earliest opportunity. Bad profits choke off a company’s best opportunities for true growth, the kind of growth that is both profitable and sustainable.

Charging customers a fee to talk to your customer service, or to use your service or to make changes to their account, is at the top for ways to generate bad profits and burn out employees and alienate customers. Like I said, if it was working why aren't companies who do it thriving?

Comments

[Chris Sherrod]

Richard Branson is seeing the US Airlines industry as a big big opportunity because of these bad profits. http://snipurl.com/26ogv

Chris - AbundanceUnlimited.com