Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The declining value of customer loyalty

 I've been weighing the benefit of renewing my Infragistics NetAdvantage subscription over the past couple of weeks and I think for the first time since 2002 I will not renew may subscription.

  Here's the issue, I've been a loyal customer since 2002, provided feedback, reported bugs and endorsed the product to co-workers and manages. My managers have always went and purchased company licenses on my recommendation.  I really like the tools overall and they generally add value each release. That said, last year early renewal was $335 which is expensive but not unreasonable, this year $445, a hundred dollars difference. They also like to send the renewal requests incrementally, 20% then 10% then nothing off all about 30 days apart, seems to me it should be the other way around, 10% then 20% to keep loyal customers. 

  The price isn't the only issue. I used to receive notice of new releases and upcoming betas,now I get nothing. I actually asked why this was on their PM's blog, the answer was that they may not have a current email address. That's funny because they can certainly reach me for a renewal request.

  So I'm going to start looking around for something comparable for another vendor, one who may actually value loyal customers. 

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