Don't nickel & dime customers into hating you

Written by on Feb 25 2011

I’m in terminal 36 at Miami International Airport and having a terribly frustrating experience with American Airlines. I’ve decided to vent some frustration by writing blog posts about my observations.

Stop squeezing your customers

Trying to squeeze the profit margin to a point that your customers lose the value (and the faith) in your product is counter-productive for your company. Example: when we flew to Miami, we paid $50 for two luggage bags plus an additional $50 for another bag that was sixty-one pounds (eleven pounds over the limit they set). $150 just to bring our bags? This is insanity.

Nickel and diming customers doesn’t empower them, the emotion this causes isn’t faith, loyalty or love. It’s distrust, discord and a feeling of uncertainty.

Your customers want to believe in the good of your company. They want to shout your praises. They want you to succeed. They understand mistakes happen, and every business must profit to stay alive.

How We Implemented This…

We at LessAccounting now offer free setup of your books from our bookkeepers. Our bookkeepers will setup your books and then walk you through the app giving you a quick walkthrough of the feature set. We understand a lot of potential customers that we start up won’t actually use the app. They’ll get setup and need something different. We could charge for this service of setup but we’re willing to lose a few dollars to make the ones that we do land feel faith in our product, certain of its rewards and empowered as a customer. Empowered customers are way more powerful than Google Adwords.

Ever been to a car wash where they charge a $1 more for an SUV?
Ever eaten at a restaurant that charges $.50 more for extra honey mustard sauce?
Ever stayed at a hotel that charges $20 a night for wifi?
Ever bought a toy for your child and the batteries weren’t included?

Remember how that extra charge makes you feel and don’t become “that company”.

Meet
Allan

Hi I'm Allan,

I wrote the article you're reading... I'm one of the co-founders of LessEverything. I love my family more than breathing and I love creating videos about our family adventures.

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