Overlay this against the flipped-funnel methodology, and you should clearly see three distinct ways to grow the business (acquisition) via the process of engaging and harnessing the power of existing customers (retention).

That thinking is actually kind of outdated. In the days of yore, the end of the line was typically characterized by a silent vote of no confidence. Until recently, we had no way of knowing if we failed to live up to our customers’ expectations. And in an environment of constant churn, the flow of newly purchased customers often masked the gaping holes in a company’s ability to hold on to its customers.

Today, of course, we have the exact opposite situation,—namely, an explosion of ways for our customers to share their sentiments and future intent with us. Only it’s much more volatile, unstable, and unpredictable in that they’ll tell us—and anyone else who will listen—what they think of us . . . regardless of whether we ask for it or like it.

Although it might seem like common sense that if we treat our customers well, they’ll come back for more—how elementary is it really? Do our track records reflect or repel this approach? As an old mentor of mine used to say, “Marketing is common sense, but how many of us have common sense?” True dat!

Today’s reality is steeped in the same cause and effect; it’s just that everything else in between has become a compendium of complexity, nuance, and/or subjectivity. So much can go wrong or set our customers off. So many steps that once were taken for granted are now critical for survival, let alone success. This—intertwined with a different use of the funnel (as a megaphone)—makes things ridiculously more sensitive and therefore critical for companies and brands to nail . . . or be nailed.

Take Dustin Curtis, for example. He’s not exactly a loyalless²⁶ consumer, but one company I know he’s not loyal to is American Airlines. It all began with a blog post titled “Dear American Airlines . . . ” in which Dustin said the following:

To read the full story, including American’s response (or lack thereof, as is indicated in Figure 8.1), as well as an anonymous e-mail Dustin receives from a user experience architect within the company who was subsequently fired, please visit www.flipthefunnelnow.com and click on “enhanced content.”

At this point, I suspect you’ve already figured out why I reprinted this little account in great detail. It is partially to make the point that customer experience correlates highly with loyalty, which in turn influences willingness to repurchase. But perhaps a little more fascinatingly, I was blown away with Dustin’s insight and internalization that a badly designed web site (in his opinion) is tantamount to a slap in the face from a rude flight attendant (my words); indeed, he even uses the exact phrase “customer experience.” Not only does Curtis beautifully validate the very definition of experience (the sum total of EVERY interaction with a customer) but also he shows how service itself is not linked to just human-to-human contact, but also technology/automation-to-human interaction.

I don’t know about you, but the way I look at web sites (through a customer experience lens of customer respect and homage) is forever changed because of one Dustin Curtis.

You didn’t really need me to make that last point, but let me throw a curveball to bring a new thought to the table. What about degrees of loyalty? For example, active versus passive loyalty in Chapter 6.

Conventional thinking holds that the more loyal customers are, the less likely they’ll be to throw in the towel and defect to one of your competitors. One might also assume that the longer a consumer is a customer, the more loyalty there is likely to be. If only life were conventional.

There’s another variable that needs to be considered in contemplating the relationship between customer experience and loyalty—namely, the sands of time as they relate to freshness or its opposite, staleness and atrophy. In many respects, time is the enemy of blind and/or unconditional loyalty. “What have you done for me lately?” has replaced “until death do we part,” especially when complacency, greed, and laziness creep into the equation:

Companies need to have an intensive, omnipresent approach to dealing with their customers. I’d almost advocate a slightly paranoid stance: Err on the side that assumes we’re only as strong as our last service transaction, especially when we’re dealing with long-standing and/or high-value customers.

Consumers today have more choice than ever before; the world is both their oyster and their marketplace, and it’s open for business around the clock. We, on the other hand, are not. For these reasons, we have to add value at every twist and turn of the customer journey, utilizing a mixture of service (doing business better using existing techniques) and innovation (finding new ways to do better business) in the process.

We’ve always believed that we can create impregnable fortresses to protect our investments (customers) against marauders (competitors), inclement weather (unforeseen circumstances), and the like. That may be so, and while we’ve probably done enough to protect ourselves from the outside-in, sometimes the enemy does lie within. By not taking care of our customers, employees, and even our culture, we run the risk of defections, mutiny, and even sabotage (Domino’s). And all those high castle towers, deep moats, and taut drawbridges simply cannot withstand the rot from within.

Case in point: all of those massively complex and far-reaching frequent-purchase programs with the oodles of miles, points, and credits. Thanks to our laborious and counterintuitive terms and conditions—with blackouts, limitations, exceptions, and small print—we create what appears to be a fortress of competitive superiority that turns out to be nothing more than a house of cards.

Here’s a simple piece of advice moving forward: NO MORE BLACKOUTS.

For starters, you run the risk of allowing your competitors to upstage you. In fact, every single caveat, exception, or condition is an opportunity served up on a silver platter for your competitors. Seriously, do you really want to make life that much easier for other companies looking for a reason to advertise something that actually makes sense to your customers? I think not. From a self-referential standpoint, a no-blackout policy is a clean and effective way of giving something back to your customers. Starwood Hotels (my preferred hotel group/chain) is pretty progressive in terms of making it easy for its members to cash in their hard-earned miles for free stays. In fact, they took this to a new level in May 2009,²⁷ when they announced that they would extend this no-blackout policy to airline deals (a natural complement to hotel stays) through their newly introduced SPG flights service. If you read between the lines, they’re teeing up the ability to use Starwood miles in exchange for airfare and, in doing so, opening up their members’ ability to pay cash for hotel rooms (read: revenue generation). Swings and roundabouts.

Blackout policies are really nothing more than blatant expressions of greed, manipulation, and opportunism. Companies telegraph their disdain for their customers by denying their ability to exchange their genuinely hard-earned points or miles for perks during what would be called peak or high season (translation: school or public holidays). In other words, all those sacrifices the road warriors made during the year really mean nothing when they can’t be shared with their families. (Can you tell how unemotional I am about the subject?)

Everything we do with and to our customers has an impact on customer experience; in turn, our customers flip that experience to their personal and social networks. This magnifies the number of people exposed to the message and at times even embellishes the experience (rarely with good and almost always with bad encounters). Using the wireless-telecommunications industry as an example, consulting firm McKinsey showed how even something seemingly as innocuous as how long it takes to answer the phone can translate all the way through to a company’s bottom line (in the form of positive or negative personal, social, or even viral recommendations).