RE: [H] -OT- Customer loyalty

[Hayes Elkins]

It also has to do with commoditization, especially with computer hardware. 
Most people just want the cheapest price for a product that will be the same 
retail boxed item at store A vs store B. I'm guilty of not remembering over 
half of the stores I purchase hardware from off pricewatch.com

From: Thane Sherrington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: The Hardware List <hardware@hardwaregroup.com>
To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com
Subject: [H] -OT- Customer loyalty
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:55:03 -0300

I read an interesting quote today:

"Loyalty is dead, the experts proclaim, and the statistics seem to bear 
them out.  On average, US corporations now lose half their customers in 
five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less 
than one.  We seem to face a future in which the only business 
relationships will be opportunistic transactions between virtual 
strangers."

I have noticed that customer loyalty is falling off here (but not off a 
cliff), but I blame this on the fact that most businesses don't care about 
their customers, and would rather make $10 right now than $5 today, and $5 
next year, and so on for the next five years.  Most people have been burned 
so many times by so many companies that they now don't trust anyone 
(although they do seem to buy into stupid advertising tricks.)  Are other 
people noticing a downward trend in customer loyalty?

T