expectations as a consumer

I suspect that the weeks leading up to the holidays season have a tendency to illuminate good and bad customer experiences for any consumer. Most often, I must say, I'm am shocked by the lack of customer centric thinking by businesses as they seem to care little about the customer experience. Much of what I do professionally is based on creating good experiences for our members. We work hard to hire and train staff to create great experiences for members and participants, build and implement donor and stakeholder cultivation plans, and, in general, lead with member centric thinking. Why is it that, seemingly, other businesses ignore this thinking? Over the last several years, I have abandoned several companies due to this, and, will never give them business again. I returned from a frustrating experience at a store yesterday, and told my wife that in 2012 I would stop giving my business to that store. It seems to me that if I continue to patronize these businesses, I'm basically saying "it's okay for you to treat your customers this way...we will continue to support you because you are the biggest, or cheapest...". Quite simply, I'm out on that. I would rather pay more, drive farther, etc. to have experiences where I know that the customer is a priority. Will me taking my business from a big box store, a satellite TV provider, a bank, a restaurant or any other business make any difference to them? Will they even notice? No. That is not the point. The point is that I choose to support businesses and organizations that seem to care about the consumer. I choose to support businesses and organizations whose values and business practices align with mine. What do you choose?- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad