When economic hardship increases and prolongs, chivalry often dies. It’s as if the root of all successes is in rudeness, officiousness, generalisations and all other nasty “nesses” out there. Perhaps we worship materialism and its abundance in our lives proves our closeness to our “material god” that a lack thereof, reveals our distance from our “material deity”.

Big companies, despite having resources to attract and retain customers, often resort to draconian and often “suicidal” rules to guard their revenue generation despite the impact on customers. No wonder loyalty is beginning to wane, with customers easily switching to competitors when their offers are seen as sustainable and dependable alternatives. Entrepreneurs should seize the moment and use the economic downturn as the opportunity to build a solid and loyal client base by maintaining good customer care practices, acquiring true knowledge of their customers, showing appreciation to loyal customers and offering customers, especially loyal ones, more flexibility to their offerings. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 August 2019.

A quick glance at the behaviour of the “duopoly” of South Africa’s top mobile telecommunications companies reveals how these giants can miss the mark totally by focusing mainly on their needs at the expense of those of their customers.

A few years ago, these giants broke the conventional rule on accepted norms of “the law of contracts”. I thought by signing a contract, parties agreed to keeping their prior-agreed terms throughout the life of the agreement and that should either party wish to change the terms of the agreement, that parties would have to agree before the changes are enforced. Should the parties not agree on the required changes, the original agreement should remain in force for the rest of the term and/ or the parties should seek independent advice of the mediator to break the impasse. If the parties still fail to agree and ending the agreement becomes inevitable, the “aggrieved” party should be compensated for the loss (to be) suffered after premature ending of the agreement.

Alas! not in South Africa, especially concerning the two telecommunications giants! They unilaterally change terms of the contract midterm in a “take it or leave it” kind of tone and attitude. It then leaves one to wonder, if these giants can willy-nilly, prematurely and unilaterally change contract terms that easily, what then is the use and benefit of a 24 months cell-phone contract to the consumer?

I understand the predicament these giants find themselves in, concerning operational costs from their dependent international service providers, however, there is and should be a better way for them to align their business or product commercial model with their operational constraints.

Nevertheless, many big companies are guilty of the same problem and of failing to develop a strategy to show appreciation to their loyal customers. Yes, all customers should be given good treatment. But no one can argue against acknowledging the special impact to the business from loyal customers.

Yes, some customers from old relationships can be a drain than a benefit to the company’s performance than those recently acquired. But it would be foolish treating all loyal customers as a nuisance when it is their persistent and uninterrupted consumption of the company’s offerings that has sustained the business. It’s not uncommon, for example, seeing companies “throwing the rulebook” at loyal customers when all they wished for, was to see some changes in how they experience services from the company. Then, you see companies making one excuse after the other, easily citing company rules and contract terms to reject customers’ requests for change.

And don’t think escalations to seniors would help either. They too, seem to have no understanding of their unique senior role enabling them to solve problems amicably. They easily use their “power” to push customers away from requesting changes or their unique situation be treated on its merits. They would rather see the customer leave than finding a way to make it work for the company and the customer. But I do understand the dillema some seniors in those companies face. In the pretext of managing risks, these seniors are often not empowered to deviate from “normal” procedures, yet easily get blamed when they lose those customers.

Now, imagine having been a mobile telephone operator customer since it started trading and when asking for what is reasonably within their powers and means to do, they refuse to do so, but the moment you then terminate your services, they try to reach out to you, wanting to understand your concerns so they can dissuade you from leaving. Suddenly, the “rigid” rules aren’t too inflexible anymore. Senior managers suddenly find others willing to sign off on your unique requests they initially found too easy to dismiss and citing the company’s rulebook. You then begin to wonder as to the number of other deals they (may) have lost owing to their arrogance, ignorance and lackadaisical approach. Banks and many other long-term service companies are guilty of the same charge.

This then brings us back to the essence of our discussion. Treat all customers fairly and with good care. Pay special attention to loyal customers and end arrogance against any customer, even if you’re the only expert in town. One day, a formidable alternative or competitor will emerge and the arrogance will be your undoing.

Rather, be humble that even when a formidable competitor arises, your loyal customers continue giving you their business out of sympathy so you can get a chance to remodel your business to deal with the threat.

Companies refrain from offering customers more flexibility to offerings because they do not want to experience complexities and incurring possible increases in costs resulting from such flexibility. Though ways can be found to mitigate risks of offering customers more flexibility, (small especially) companies should not readily be inflexible if they want growth. While we also understand that there are customers who’d readily accept inflexibility from large companies, but would easily want to “squeeze” small ones for every advantage they could gain, this is never an excuse for small companies to not have an amicable strategy to meet clients needs and mitigate own risks.

History has shown nothing lasts forever and the arrogant are quick to suffer losses at the slightest opportunity customers get to switch suppliers or consuming alternative offerings. Though we fail to learn from history as we tend to repeat mistakes, a small-business owner will have nothing to gain from total inflexibility and arrogance.

Be vigilant while also not stopping in finding ways to always succeed and meeting, if not exceeding, expectations of your customers.