Customer Loyalty. Suppliers are Killing It (and not in a good way).

If you’ve spent much time reading this blog, you know that we live in an off grid house, powered by a photovoltaic system I designed and built myself. It was the third time I had put solar in a building, but the first time I’d been brave enough to do it in the building where we actually lived. Unlike the first two systems, I relied on one, specific retailer to supply me with the equipment. I did that in large part because one of their founders was active in an online discussion forum dedicated to solar DIYers, where he helped quite a few of us design and build quality systems, whether we were purchasing from him or not. He also employed people who seemed both knowledgable and focused on customer service, all of which I appreciated. So despite a minor bump or two in our relationship where they messed up on something, I would just go to their website, select the equipment I wanted, and place an order. I didn’t shop around much if at all, and I was OK with that because I valued the supplier.

But over the past year, I’ve noticed this founder being much less active on that forum. He has also hired new people who seem less knowledgeable and who are harder to access. And shipping costs to receive equipment from this supplier seemed to have risen significantly, in large part because they started adding on some type of third party shipping insurance to customer orders, and they make it difficult to easily opt out of that. I complained to them directly about the latter two things, especially the shipping costs. That had no effect, and most recently, I got three different and conflicting answers to a support problem I had, that still isn’t resolved. I’d say my loyalty is a bit threadbare at this point.

The end result is that this supplier has lost a customer who almost never price shopped, and who frankly rarely shopped around at all, before making a purchase. That’s not a customer most businesses want to lose, but I find that customer loyalty just isn’t valued these days, which is the core thought behind this post.

There are still some of us out there that don’t do a lot of price shopping if we think the deal we are getting is fair. Instead, we’ll go where we think the supplier actually values our business and is willing to listen when we have a complaint. In most cases, I don’t even demand that they actually change the thing I’m complaining about, so long as they seriously listen to and consider the complaint. They can even respond with reasons for doing what they’re doing, as I may not have all the facts. But the moment I feel like I’m being taken for granted, or forced to put up with substandard service just because the supplier finds it hard to find quality employees, I’ve decided my loyalty is no longer warranted. Listen and treat me with respect, and I think I’m a pretty good customer. Treat me like a number, or like you’re doing me a favor, and I’ll soon relieve you of that obligation, for good. I wish more people would do the same with suppliers. But until they do, and as long as most people will accept poor service in their mindless pursuit of what they think is a “deal”, I think the rest of us are basically doomed, in terms of good customer service.