Customer Experience in-times of Stiff Competition

Incidence:

Couple of weeks back my website vendor discontinued to host my website. I inquired about the reason & I was told by one of the employees of the company that domain renewal amount was not paid and due date is over. I told her but I confirmed over phone to renew & I will make payment in a week. She said no , we do not have power to renew without payment. 

I am their customer since 15 years, I confirmed to pay over phone, I paid all these year before the due date ,  yet the incidence took place. 

Discussions:

I took up the matter with their MD. His response; we do not authorize our employees to renew without payment. I said but my long relation and past payment record!!!. He said no in times of low margin & stiff competition we do not invest in such systems to track all these as it is costly. I said but before you people unhost any website shouldn't senior management look at the defaulters list to differentiate between habitual defaulters & onetime, big , long association based defaulters ? He said we have 50 renewals daily & we can't manually track like that. 

 CX issues: 

- All customers are treated equally - irrespective of longevity of association, past track record, size of the customer

- No value for customers' verbal communication

- No empowerment or system to monitor before discontinuance of services

- No communication on the day or after discontinuance from the company 

- No feeling of apology but all justifications for the action taken

I was told by the MD that 90% customers pay online. That means only 10% irregular customers. Management has no time even to monitor this 10% of customers also before taking such a drastic action. What a misplaced priorities !!

First of all I doubt this is happening in many companies as long term association and payment track records are the basic things to check while one decides to discontinue services or discontinue doing business. 

We all are dealing with many private & public sector vendors. Everyone offers time to pay once the services are availed. Here in this case for the want of advance payment services were discontinued. 

Big question is not about this vendor. Big Question is many such customer issues companies are either not aware of or ignoring. Lost customer is costly. As happy customers buy more & can bring more referral customers, unhappy & lost customers not only take away revenue but takes away some other customers too. 

Ask your sales team how difficult these days to get a new customer. After having one, it is up to the management to decide how to treat him. You can make him feel very special & go out of the way to help or treat him with all system, process & management shortcomings.  

In times of stiff competition when getting customer is difficult and losing can be costly , isn't it all the more IMPORTANT & CRITICAL to offer delightful customer experience ?