How to earn customers for life [video]

There's nothing wrong with asking exiting customers if there were/are problems that could be addressed. But there absolutely is something wrong with badgering/harassing/tricking or wasting the time of customers leaving, as it will cause reputational damage and worse cause repeat custom to almost disappear.

It is just yet another example of how modern US business culture values the Short over Long Term. In the short you see a slightly lower Customer turnover, but in the long term you see a HUGE reduction in returning customers (who remember the exit process from last time).

To be clear: A short survey makes it feels like a company gives a crap about why you're leaving, but it needs to be via the same mechanism you used to sign up (e.g. online sign-up? Then online exit), and it shouldn't feel like a way to block the exit. This is particularly problematic if you're forced to call and the person on the other end is on commission. They're more often than not just there to wear you down and make you hate interacting with the company, by its very nature if you do leave you will be unlikely to return since that's the last thing you remember.

I've blacklisted multiple businesses for that practice and I often check the cancellation process during sign-up to avoid it.

I have seen many companies succeed despite them clearly viewing their users as pawns. In fact, most YC companies that try to sell me things are blatantly transactional and while that has always ruled me out as a customer many of them are doing just fine.

Would be better to have hard data rather than empathy porn.

https://www.fractalaudio.com/

They make the highest end guitar audio processing HW and are constantly providing free SW updates that greatly enhance the unit. Their lack of a subscription model for SW flies in the face of current HW/SW product monetization "wisdom." Compare to their competition which maybe pushes out one or two firmware updates over the life of the product that are mostly bug fix.

I have bought every main release of their flagship product and will keep doing so even though it is way more than a bedroom player needs. If you are into guitar and a hacker, I recommend checking it out. It is a massive evolution beyond the old school pedalboard and tube amp world (which of course have their old school charms). It has an insane level of depth and most parameters are controllable in real time.

I fondly remember people DM me on Twitter how they got a job after reading my book.

Selling stuff is good, but people telling you that they got more value than they paid for is awesome.

I recently bought a hat from Boston Scally Company. It wasn't a super cheap made-in-China $10 hat like you can easily find on Amazon or eBay, I paid $50 for it. When I got the hat, it was covered in threads. Some needed to be cut off. When I emailed the company, their reply was "we're sorry you aren't happy with the quality of the hat, you can just remove the threads and it won't affect the integrity of the hat."

That's the wrong response. The correct response is "We're embarrassed the hat shipped to you like that. Would you like us to send you a replacement or do you want to send it back for a refund?" I am certainly not going to buy anything from this company again when they can't acknowledge their screw up.

Own your mistakes. In almost all cases it's the right move and you earn the respect of the customer.

It's not working for me. I own a mobile app (B2C) with paying users and this is the hardest part: Talking to users.

I'm literally offering money to my users to talk to them but nobody wants to.

What am I doing wrong?