We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries. Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction. Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible. The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass. The customer is generic, not unique individually. This is a transaction, not anything more.
In sports, we look at that customer – that account holder whose ticket for an individual basketball game might cost $100. But the average account has 2.5 tickets. There are 41 home games in the season, and the average account lasts for 5.3 years. So, we can view that conversation as a generic customer or a $100 ticket, or we could realize that the lifetime value of the relationship with the person I’m speaking with is $54,325.
We’re working in the water utility call center, and somebody is calling in to ask how to use our ePortal, or they’re complaining about a high bill. We noticed that their average bill is $75. We could view this person as somebody who is asking a question we’ve gotten 100 times, we’re just trying to give them the standard response. Or we can realize that the average homeowner will end up living in our community for close to 30 years. Therefore, in today’s dollars, that $75 monthly bill equates to an account worth $27,000.
It shouldn’t matter whether this is a $100 ticket or a $54,000 account. It shouldn’t matter whether this is a $75 invoice or a $27,000 account. But for many of us, it does matter.
For many of us in customer service, it affects our mindset. If we go into every interaction just viewing this as a transaction or somebody asking me a question or presenting me with an issue, it can feel routine, not interesting or unique, and sometimes that indifference in our mind can come across as indifference in our tone of voice and interaction with that customer.
So, it’s sometimes beneficial to get that phone call from the season ticket holder, and realize this is somebody who has $54,000 in value in ticket purchases alone. It’s beneficial to think about this water utility customer as somebody who is contributing $27,000 to the municipality.
It shouldn’t matter, but sometimes it helps to get us in the right mindset when we see the true lifetime value of the customers we serve.
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