Should we invest more in customers or prospects?

Recently, we’ve been seeing companies value their prospects more than their customers. You’ve heard the stories. Company A says, “I’ll give a new customer 25% off their first order.” Or, a pharmaceutical company will underwrite the cost of the first prescription being filled. Or, how about your cable company offering new customers a half-price discount while your monthly fee continues to climb?

Yikes. Are new customers getting the complete courtship and existing customers paying the fee? What happened to “customer for life” and never taking a customer for granted?

During a recent meeting, a client said, “We only want new customers. Let’s not lose the profit from existing customers.” Why don’t we turn that thinking on its head and say, “Let’s take care of the people who got us this far, and if we get new referral customers, all the better.”

In today’s transparent world, treating customers as second-class citizens or as indentured customers is a sure-fire way to lose share, loyalty and customers. Marketers need to be inclusive in their offers, and if it is good for the customer, it is good for the prospect — not the other way around.

Wake up, corporate America: people are talking, people are sharing, and information leaps across the old traditional barriers. How about adopting a new motto: Let’s delight all our customers for life.