Why You Should Never Worry About Losing Loyal Customers
Have you ever been in a restaurant and overheard a customer telling some poor waitress that, because of her poor service or the evening’s bad food, they were losing a loyal customer?
“They may never give us money. We may never ask them to. But we want something from them, and that makes them our customers.
The people you want to subscribe to your feed? Customers. The people you want to link to you? Customers. The people you want to enroll in your affiliate program? Customers.”
(Yes, I’m quoting myself, but I wrote this in October and nobody read it the first time.)
It would appear that there has been home business blogosphere drama surrounding the issue of spec work. (Raise your hand if you’re surprised.) For the uninitiated, here’s the scoop.
Jonathan Fields, writer of Awake at the Wheel, has scored a well-deserved book contract from Random House and decided that he would like to hold a contest for the cover design. Nice, oui?
Skellie mentioned the contest on Freelance Switch and hysteria ensued. As usual, Freelance Switch commentators had a field day and basically lost their shit. Here’s a sampling:
* What the f*** is this? FSw asking for spec work, even defending it? For me, this could be the end of this site.
* NetNewsWire now has one fewer feed to worry about.
* I thought this was a real website, c’mon!
* i feel like breaking up, maybe we need time, i need to see other websites.
* It’s been interesting, but I think it is time for me to move on. This site has some serious ethics issues.
* removed from my rss reader.. practice what you preach.
* Fsw - you just lost another loyal follower.
The last one was perhaps my favorite. I’m sure the folks at FSw are just weeping over the loss of that loyal follower.
Nothing says loyal like bailing at the first sign of a disagreement.
Here’s a little secret about business and blogging. You have to fuck up really, really, really badly before you’ll lose a loyal customer or reader. You’ll lose lots of disloyal and neutral and ambivalent ones — it’s the nature of the beast — but loyal ones don’t leave because they didn’t like one post.
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I won’t even comment about the JF scandal, because I’ll launch into a rampage over arTEESTEs. We’ll just not go there.
Interesting post, though. In combination with yesterday’s post about bloggers with no follow-through and my own experience of seeing the enraged FS readers still commenting happily over there… Oh yeah. Looks like you’re right.
So, basically, I’m in a dying minority of the group of people whose word means something. And that kind of sucks, you know? Because trust is a big, big thing on the Internet.
Then again, I’ve had wine. No one should listen to a writer on Shiraz.
Meanwhile, the REAL freelancers (as in, the ones making money) were too busy working to bother with that bullshit. Poor Jonathan. Some people should just STAY on DeviantArt.
Great point about true loyalty–so true!
Okay, I’m with you on this. But how many readers/subscribers are “loyal” and how many are casual/neutral/ambivalent? Say I have several thousand subscribers (I wish). Is it possible or even desirable for all of them to be loyal? And how would I even go about telling the difference (other than drops when something controversial happens)?
Well, at my stage of customer numbers I need them all - loyal or not.
And in the blogosphere it is awfully hard to figure out how many readers you have, let alone which are loyal. So I’m with Working Rachel on this.
And with James on the importance of trust. I think this is the currency of the blogosphere (and leads me on occasion to say nasty things about those internet marketers who sometimes abuse this - I think they hurt us all).
Count me in as one of the uninitiated who has no idea why the contest was such a big deal. I’ve never looked at Freelance Switch, so I’m obviously missing something. Gotta love the politics of any given situation, don’t you?
I think your point is excellent Naomi. I am however especially fascinated by the notion that someone who subscribes to a site and receives free content (in the case of a blog at least) thinks that they’re somehow owed something by the site owner. If they’d paid money I could see the WTF attitude being okay. But for a consumer (dare I say freeloader??) to make demands after benefiting from free content, well I say there’s some arrogance in the mix somewhere.
On the other hand, I totally agree that I should treat my readers as customers or at least potential customers. Hm. I have a double standard, don’t I? Quick! Somebody straighten me out!!!
Portrait of the Jon thing with FWS: http://menwithpens.ca/get-your-nose-out-of-the-air-and-relax
There are abusive customers who use threats and mean comments to manipulate the business owners or the customer service reps. Perhaps just as many of them as the rude and dump customer service reps.
As a person and business owner / writer, all I can do is to keep my integrity — which is very very hard to do.
Hm. Well. Just read your post and all comments there. (I think. I think I got them all. Anyway.) Then I went and read at FSw for a while. If the designers commenting on that blog are a clear representative sample of the readership, then I have NO interest in hiring them for any design work I may have.
I am still trying to understand the whole concept of spec work, and I gather it’s a bad thing. But what I was disgusted by is the way people attacked FSw over it. Again, maybe I’m missing something.
It’s too bad that Jonathan and Skellie got raked over the coals like that. And people should stop taking themselves so seriously. Isn’t FSw giving them employment opportunities? Where’s the gratefulness?
“Nothing says loyal like bailing at the first sign of a disagreement.”
It just goes to prove what you said about 90% of people yesterday :-) Loyal indeed …
Keep on rockin -
Dave
I had this happen not too long ago on my site. A group of people stomped off the site, making as much noise as possible, trying to create drama, swearing they’d never come back. Interestingly, most of them are still around and the loudest of the bunch, still come around trying to stir things up a bit. I’ve just taken on the belief that it’s their crap and their life and has nothing to do with me.
I have to disagree with everyone here. As a graphic designer/illustrator for 23 yrs I am well acquainted with the practice of holding “contests” for artwork so that the going rate for such work does not have to be paid. Usually starving students and such will enter and that’s fine but it demeans the profession of illustration and design when it is done purely to save money. Anyone can create a book jacket right? Why should I pay some hotshot designer the going rate for something I can get for maybe $50 bucks or $150 bucks? And who cares about the quality, it’s my writing, my book, that’s important right?
Well, banks and governments and public agencies and non-profits have been using these “contests” as money-saving devices for years (believe me I’ve been involved in promoting them for these agencies). I’m sure that the spirit of this contest was not intended to insult, but insult it does. If this post is written poorly, remember, I’m no writer; but then, I work cheap.
Naomi,
Having commented my head off re: FSW over at Men With Pens, I will refrain from getting angry again about idiots who don’t know spec work from a chance to prove they’ve got the goods through legitimate competition. Two words: Not professionals. Wait, a third word: Posers.
The loyalty thing in general, though: it’s like folks said about Ralph Nader running for U.S. President eight years ago, when folks tried to say he “stole” votes from Al Gore: anybody who voted for Ralph Nader was not Gore’s in the first place. People who can’t stick with you through just a bit of thick and thin aren’t yours.
I suspect you inspire more loyalty than that here at IttyBiz. I’m guessing that in a place where civil debate is encouraged, people stay, battle it out and try to convince you of their point of view, then wait to see what you’ll throw at them next. Or do you have wild fluctuations of subscribers when you post something people see from another angle?
Curious…
Until later,
Kelly
Just a follow up of my own comment above. I was talking about the manipulative customers - problem customer service in general, like in your local restaurants. Nothing to do with Jonathan Fields or Freelance Switch.
About spec work and “contest” — hmm. I am not sure. I just wonder what people who are against this think about threadless.com. . .
@ Diana - Before you go disagreeing with people, you should understand what’s really going on and know more about the people involved. Jonathan would never do such a thing in order to not pay people. That’s what cheats and scumbags do. Jonathan is a true professional. The whiny shits who left such idiotic comments at FSW were not.
Hi Diana,
While I respect every individual’s right to their own take on spec work, that wasn’t what I took issue with in this post. I took issue with the misuse of the word “loyalty”.
In addition, I think it’s ironic that so many people — especially the more vocal commentators on Freelance Switch — play the “I’m the consummate professional” card while swearing and ranting and generally acting like angry four-year-olds. Not very professional, in my opinion. Like spec work, don’t like spec work. Subscribe to FSw, don’t subscribe to FSw — whatever. I just find it fascinating that these “professionals” are acting in so unprofessional a manner in so public a forum.
Thanks for your input, and it’s great to have your opinion here. I just wanted to clarify with you, and anybody else reading, that I’m not making a statement about the appropriateness of spec work but on the appropriateness of their readers’ reactions.
@ Michael (”at” me? Sounds hostile.) you are right and I should have read his comments before I posted here. You can see that many of us in the profession have been abused by this subject matter and are (really, really) on the defensive. I just read Jonathan’s comments on the subject and agree that his intentions were sincere. That is unusual in my experience. Usually these contests take advantage of students and beginners hungry for any morsel. Also, I had not seen the $1000 offered. That is no small sum. My apologies if anyone thought I was speaking of Jonathan specifically. My ire was directed at my past experience with very wealthy banks, etc, using tricks to buy graphics on the cheap!
Yes, we are a defensive bunch. Ouch. Thanks for the black eye.
@ Kelly — In answer to your question, no, my reader counts don’t tend to fluctuate unless I don’t post in a while. If I leave the blog blank for a few days, I’ll usually lose 20 readers, give or take, depending on the day of the week.
I will say upfront that I wasn’t a loyal reader of Freelance Switch. It was just a cool place to get some good information about freelancing. But that whole debacle with Jonathan just gave me a bad taste in my mouth and I decided to bail.
I didn’t bail because of the whole contest thing. I happen to think contests are cool. I just kind of laughed at all of the designers screaming about the contest being “spec” work. These people aught to look around at the fiction writing market. I bailed because I didn’t like how Jonathan was treated by his peers. You would’ve thought he was some atheist trying to preach to a room full of Christians.
I agree, though, your loyal readers are your road dogs. They’ll follow you anywhere you go. I have blogs that I read religiously and they would have to do something out of character on a consistent basis in order for me to unsubscribe. Like suddenly start spamming me or some other nonsense.
On a side note: I don’t believe these contests demean the profession in any way. They are contests. They are in a category all their own. You either enter or you don’t. It’s like someone said (I think it was James…?), if Jonathan had been offering $100,000 as the prize everyone would have been hailing him as a hero and a credit to his profession. But because he wasn’t offering “industry rates” he was deemed a jerk. Nice.
Thank you Naomi,
the reason I read Itty Biz is BECAUSE you invite controversy and don’t shirk away from it. You kick ass. I feel I can speak my mind here but as Michael pointed out I can often speak before my brain is engaged. I’m a fighter not a lover I guess.
Loyalty? I don’t think loyalty should be an issue when debating serious matters. That would interfere with honest expression. I agree with you that taking your pencils and going home is silly among professionals in that group but then I wasn’t familiar with them. I come here for your honesty. I don’t expect to agree with everything you say and you may seriously piss me off some day (I hope so, life can be so boring), but I’ll be back for more! Itty Biz is more challenging than your average breakfast reading material.
Thank you, Diana. We can look forward to a long and happy life of pissing each other off while we eat our Cheerios. :) Do you read Men With Pens? That shit would piss of Gandhi.
@ Arwen — OMG, I know re: fiction. It’s hilarious! “Send us your novella and we’ll send you fifty bucks and a free copy of our Lulu book!” Do we even have industry rates in writing anymore, of do you just get a free 500-word blog post in every specially marked package of McCain frozen pizza? :-)
@Michael - I wholeheartedly agree. We met with Jonathan at SXSW and I was so intrigued by his book and personality that I (a graphic designer with a more than good enough resume and clientlist to walk into any major publishing house) saw the contest as a friendly way for me to contribute my talent to a good cause and have a little friendly competition to boot. Who wins? Jonathan - of course! That’s the point though. I wouldn’t enter a contest like that with any real intentions of getting something for myself other than hopefully meeting a few other cool designers and helping think through a book cover (yes, for free) that deserves this kind of fun, crowdsourced design process. Anyone trolling around looking to snag extra cash on these contests clearly has other things in mind than promoting the book… which is fine for major Adobe contests and the like, but totally misses the point here. Finally, this was a genuine way for Jonathan to open up the design process to a big, talented community rather than keeping it closed to the publisher’s choice, a pretty cool offer if it had stuck.
As a designer, I fail to see the argument. Sure, thse contests are usually fought over by A) starving college students and young designers seeking some hard-earned respect and B) mega designers who want to give back to a good cause and generate some good PR. I don’t see a problem with that though. Most designers that are established enough to be making a living off of the trade, won’t even bother with these because, yeah, they devalue your work and don’t offer a trustworthy return for your time spent on the contest. In short - you should enter a contest like this with full knowledge that there’s a high chance of getting nothing back - and if you’re not cool with that, then don’t enter.
The fact is that this wasn’t some shady deal to swindle good designers out of a paycheck, it was an opportunity for willing designers to battle it out over a design to help promote a cool book. The fact that it was reduced to this slimy mess of conspiracy theories is just silly.
I guess I’m really good at going off on a tangent and changing the subject. Oops. By the way, if I show a little attitude, it’s not meant to be taken personally. :)
Sadly, the buzz off my glass of Shiraz is gone, but happily, the comments on here are wildly interesting.
@ Naomi - Another curious phenomena was the loyalty that FSW showed its readers. One tantrum of spoiled children, and FSW bent like a willow in the wind. My first thought was, “Who owns this blog?” Perhaps it’s just a question of loyalty with the tables turned.
*disclaimer* I like FSW and the people who work there. I just think they need to grow a pair.
@ Diana - Please. Come read. Come disagree. Then come back here and eat Cheerios with Naomi while you discuss what heathens we are. Oh, and please don’t be an arTEESTe. I’d have to not like you then, and you came around so nicely that it’s hard not to.
@ Arwen - No, that wasn’t me, but I’ll take credit if it makes me more famous, richer or happier with a better quality of life.
@ Kelly - You make me laugh, and you’re very wise. And interesting. If you were a man, I’d induct you into the Pens. (and give you a Wordpress blog!)
@ Michael - Never apologize for going off topic or showing attitude. Good lord, man, have I not taught you anything? Sheesh.
@ Naomi
My favorite was the time I happened upon a website owner who thought he was doing writers a favor by even looking at the work. Didn’t pay a dime, barely had a Pagerank or any traffic that I could see but we were supposed to be “honored” to have our work selected for his prestigious website. Whatever dude! You get what you pay for.
@ James
I could’ve sworn it was you. I remember reading your blog post about it. Maybe it was in the comment section. Then again, I have this really bad habit of lateral reading. I’ll have multiple pages of content up and read a paragraph of one and then flip to another page and read a paragraph and then flip to another page… (Yeah, I have attention deficit issues) So it could’ve been another blog entirely.
@James…”Oh, and please don’t be an arTEESTe.”
No worries there! After 20+ yrs of being “art directed” by various government employees (one manager actually said his wife had taken an art class once so he knew where the type should be placed) I have no dignity left for an arTEESTe. So I quit, and now stand on street corners touting my web site and offering my art for cheerios.
@Naomi, Men with Pens? I shudder…. I still have PTSD from gov’t work. Maybe someday when I feel stronger :)
Naomi,
I have the drop-off thing happen when I forget to feed the beast, too. I’m guessing not on the scale that you do. What’s with that? When one of my faves doesn’t show up in my inbox for a few days I say thank goodness, maybe I can get a little work done around here. Or read the other nineteen that do show up. Why does that make readers hit unsub?
Brandon,
You enter a design contest the way you buy a lottery ticket. With money (time) you won’t miss, to think differently for a little while, and because the one thing you know for sure is that you won’t win if you don’t. If you are a starving arTEEST, for crying out loud go get some business and stop reading blogs. Yes?
Oh, oh, I had to cut three sentences there. Starting to get hot under the collar again.
James,
I’m surely not a man, but I got the pair that’s not over at FSW. & another thing… I SPENT TWO HOURS TODAY LOOKING INTO THE SWITCH ALREADY! Bugger off, please, “the switch” looks very tricky. I mean that in a loving way, because if you weren’t a million miles away I’d definitely have a swig of that Shiraz and laugh over my reluctance. (Links and post-slugs and nasty things.)
I’m a Capricorn. We take our time with things. And Irish. Hence humor & traditionalism. There. All things Naomi didn’t want to know about me. I feel invasive going OT on someone else’s blog.
Regards,
Kelly
I think that a truly loyal reader isn’t going to react that way, usually people are more forgiving if they like you. You’re totally right about losing some of the marginal readers though I suspect most of them will only say they are unsubscribing… free is still free and you never know what you can learn. The cost of an RSS subscription is $0 after all. :)
After the FSW debacle, I was embarrassed to call myself a designer/freelancer. I really don’t want to be associated with a group of people so quick to attack over something so inconsequential.
If you don’t like contests, cool, don’t enter. If you want to help a guy out and design a cover for fun, then go for it! I have no shortage of work, but I was planning on entering just for the heck of it. Unfortunately, the poor guy shut the contest down due to the massive guilt trip laid on him by an angry mob of sub-par, self absorbed “designers”.
My theory on the no-spec crowd has always been that they’re afraid of open competition.
But that’s just my humble opinion. ;)
Okay, I just read James’ post on the contest and realized I was too hasty to call those designers sub-par and self-absorbed. While some, certainly are, I shouldn’t have made a broad generalization.
Besides, it makes me sound self-absorbed, too.
I’ve raged on a few companies trying to take advantage of designers by offering spec work, but Jonathan’s case was different. I felt really bad he got such a beating over that.
It’s totally understandable why designers get upset about spec work. It’s so bad for our industry. But sometimes people don’t stop to think about a situation in an objective way. You can’t treat all cases the same way and just because there is a design competition doesn’t mean someone is trying to take advantage.
I was appalled at the lack of manners many people had in the comments. There are many ways to respectfully get your point across when you have a disagreement. That’s what being a professional is about.
I agree, not all customers are worth keeping. The ones who blow up over something small will make your life a hell in the end anyway. Maybe because I’ve been doing this for 5 years now, I just don’t have tolerance for PITA customers anymore. We try to fix any issues that come up when possible, but unreasonable people get shown the door. Keeps me from aging prematurely.
I have replaced very nice Shiraz with very thick coffee.
The other day, we lost a few subscribers and I was worried over our numbers dropping (I’m stupid like that. I love my stats and have very specific milestones to break, so sign up for our feed. I need to hit the magic number and get some peace).
Anyways, I digress. The point was, we lost a few people and I was worried about why they left. Harry said, “Maybe they weren’t the kind of people we wanted in the first place.”
Hm. Good point, that.
@ Jon - You are not self-absorbed and definitely not sub-par. You are too cool. If you didn’t already wield a paintbrush and coding tools, I’d offer you a Pen and induct you.
We had a lot (read, a LOT) of designers email us and mention that they were ashamed to be designers after their… arTEESTe peers threw a hissy.
@ Arwen - Umm… I hear you on that AD issue… I… uh… do that too.
@ Diana - Good. Now I can like you fully :)
@ Kelly - Harry is some odd sign like that as well. If he has a decision to make (like, do you want pizza or Chinese? do you like blue or red?), he observes for about a million years. He says nothing. He watches. He waits. He does sneaky research on the side. He slowly turns over the matter in his brain like a curious object.
In the meantime, I’m having a freakin’ SPAZ, tearing out my hair and bouncing off walls going, “JUST DO IT!!”
“No, no,” he’ll said quietly. “I’m a Sagitarrius… that’s not how we work.”
ARRGGGHGH!! *falls down dead*
James,
They were not yours. Just like poor Al Gore and the voters. Just like the restaurant hecklers. On the Internet folks are very, very fickle.
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Chinese, unless the pizza is very good. Champagne, unless the shiraz is very good. Normally blue, but grey and brown are better. More classic. This is required for Capricorns. Red, for raciness and for assertiveness. You Cancers are more like my Pisces daughter, got to DO before think. This is not The Way.
Ahem.
Until later,
Kelly
@ Kelly - Do not feel guilty about getting off topic on my blog. My blog seldom has a topic, so you are free to change it at will.
Pizza, period. Shiraz. Brown. And I am a Pisces, but I don’t DO at all. I emote. Then I might think. But it rarely results in the doing of anything. Considering my husband is a Libra (who also does not DO, but weighs options repeatedly) not a lot gets done in this house.
Having read here since January or so, I’d say you’re on-topic more than you’re off in the comments, but today at least I can help with that…
I hear you, my Pisces daughter does plenty of emoting also. My ex was a Libra (well, sadly he still is, but “was” has a hopeful sound)… he also weighed endlessly. Then he usually lost his temper, and that’s my fifth edit of that sentence. *Coughs* Hence my daughter who has another eight-ish years of visitation to endure, frequently emotes. It’s definitely Piscean (is that a word?) but hard to distinguish from just working the world out, in her case.
Brown surprises me in a Pisces. My daughter thinks she was born in a Monet painting, and the few others I’ve known were definitely aqua-goes-with-lots-of-everything types, also.
Note to self, pick up wine after work. For some reason I’m thinking red.
Until later,
Kelly
You are so right. There have been very few times where I stopped reading a particular site due to difference of opinion. I would state which sites I do not read but I am not interested in driving any traffic their way :). Author’s who rely only on flamebait to generate traffic are another story.
I like your blog : )