I’ve always argued that business owners and customers should all be looking for a mutually beneficial relationship. One party provides the goods and the other brings the money. Owners should no longer rely on customer brand loyalty and customers should no longer rely on a brand to maintain their quality.
Customers see brand quality dissolve faster now than ever, and weve seen some incredible business cases where their once loyal customers turn their backs. My favorite example is of Keurig and their DRM coffee pods, no longer allowing customers to enjoy their coffee makers and ultimately losing thousands of customers.
I continue to hope that basic customers do find high value in their products and maybe find value in certain brands, but until the brand owners value the relationship between seller and buyer, I see the customer hopefully wising up more not than ever that alternatives exist.
Diablojota on
I always call this regressing to the mean. They become like every other steakhouse. Essentially, Outback. Generic.
schrodingers_gat on
This article misses that often the driver for lower quality is going public or being bought by private equity. When brands endure year after year, it’s usually because they are privately owned and the owners care more about a legacy than the next quarter’s results. As soon as any business is financialized, the incentives change and the business dies a slow death.
3 Comments
I like this article.
I’ve always argued that business owners and customers should all be looking for a mutually beneficial relationship. One party provides the goods and the other brings the money. Owners should no longer rely on customer brand loyalty and customers should no longer rely on a brand to maintain their quality.
Customers see brand quality dissolve faster now than ever, and weve seen some incredible business cases where their once loyal customers turn their backs. My favorite example is of Keurig and their DRM coffee pods, no longer allowing customers to enjoy their coffee makers and ultimately losing thousands of customers.
I continue to hope that basic customers do find high value in their products and maybe find value in certain brands, but until the brand owners value the relationship between seller and buyer, I see the customer hopefully wising up more not than ever that alternatives exist.
I always call this regressing to the mean. They become like every other steakhouse. Essentially, Outback. Generic.
This article misses that often the driver for lower quality is going public or being bought by private equity. When brands endure year after year, it’s usually because they are privately owned and the owners care more about a legacy than the next quarter’s results. As soon as any business is financialized, the incentives change and the business dies a slow death.