Editors Note: Jim Kuschill is a patient man. Patient enough to have architected one of the world’s leading loyalty marketing software platforms while Chief Technology Officer of Frequency Marketing. DIRECTV got his goat and the following is worth a read, especially if you’re the person responsible for customer experience or customer service at your company.

I don’t know when the customer experience scales tipped, but indeed they have – DIRECTV can now claim to be just as lacking as your typical cable company.

My enlightenment started a few months ago…

As is the case with so many of us, my wife and I are pretty busy and we almost never remember pay per view (PPV). On this particular evening, I remembered PPV and even identified a movie that would be fun to watch. I queued it up and was looking forward to some comedy over the coming weekend, or maybe the weekend after.

In case you haven’t heard, the PPV model has changed and the (then) subtle notations on the ordering menu about the “new and improved” model were too subtle for me to comprehend. My movie recorded, my bill was debited, and my movie was erased.

I did some research and discovered this was certainly my fault. Flaming blog entries from a variety of people indicated that the change had taken place some time before. Never mind that there wasn’t anything with my billing statement explaining the change, nor an e-mail, nor a separate communication. It was as if DirecTV and the Studios didn’t want anybody to know about the change. How could it be that they wouldn’t want you to know that “pay per view” had become “pay per download?” Clearly the emphasis was now on “pay per” and viewing be damned.

I spent time wondering about “fair use” and what the Studios were thinking. How does a movie taking up space on somebody’s DVR lose them money? Do they expect thousands of recurring neighborhood parties for Battle of the Smithsonian? Maybe the movie gets tweeted around the world in 4 million little pieces? I just couldn’t figure it out.

I sent an e-mail of complaint to DirecTV and requested a credit to my bill. No response. I sent another. Still nothing. The $4.99 wasn’t worth a call, which sadly I suspect was the plan in not responding to the e-mail, so I simply bit my tongue.

But, I really did want to watch that movie, so I tried to order it again. The DirecTV system, being smarter than I am, decided that because I had already viewed that movie that I couldn’t really want to view it again. Well, that’s not quite correct, it said something was “wrong” and I needed to call them. Sorry, it just wasn’t worth it.

I vowed to never again use PPV – we simply couldn’t watch a movie within 24 hours of recording.

I have to imagine many people did just the same and sales tanked quite a bit. I have to imagine that DirecTV noticed, and trying to get viewers back they held a promotion in December offering 4 movies for the price of 2. Frankly, this was enough to get my attention and break my vow – which is usually a bad idea. But I had an ace up my sleeve and since the prior problem I had developed a Rube Goldberg way of recording the movies, so maybe I could beat the system, maybe just a little.

With the hustle of the holidays we forgot about the offer until the morning of December 30th, so we had to move fast so as not to impinge too much on all the football we wanted to watch. I scheduled 2 of the movies for the night of the 30th and the other 2 for the night of the 31st (making certain the last finished recording before the clock ticked over to the 1st). I got up early on the 31st, scheduled a few football games to record, and started my “transcription” process. Did the same thing on the 1st (with the parade this time). Mission accomplished – didn’t miss much of any football game and had 4 movies to watch sometime later for under $10. Such a deal. Well, almost. Turns out I had a media problem with one movie so we got 3 for $10, still not so bad.

Well, I just got my bill. The 2 movies I downloaded on the 30th show up as being downloaded on the 31st. And sadly, the 2 movies I downloaded on the 31st show up as being downloaded on the 1st. So no credit.

I immediately call DirecTV and quickly get through to Customer Service. Mickey confirms that his screens show the movies correctly being ordered/delivered on the 30th and 31st. I ask what seems to be a logical question, “Why does my bill show the 31st and the 1st?” Mickey has no answer. My next question is about the missing credit. Mickey has an answer for this – “DirecTV will mail you a certificate that you need to return.” Huh? “I’m sorry, can you say that again?” Mickey repeats his explanation – they are going to mail a certificate and I need to return it “with my payment.” I mention that I’m on an automatic payment plan, “How will that work?” I ask. Mickey doesn’t know. “Does the certificate come with the bill or will it be in a separate envelope?” Mickey doesn’t know. “When am I getting the certificate?” Mickey is happy he has an answer to this one – “Usually 4 to 6 weeks.” “Usually?” I inquire. “Well, yes, usually 4 to 6 weeks” say’s Mickey.

I ask Mickey if he doesn’t think this is pretty “customer unfriendly.” No response. I ask if I can make a complaint about the process. Mickey offers to forward an e-mail to the complaint department, but his heart isn’t in it. “Mickey, I understand this is not of your doing, but somebody there should really be thinking about this more from the customer perspective.” No comment from Mickey. I wish him a nice weekend and hang up.

DirecTV will pay for people to answer the phones because the bills are wrong. DirecTV will pay for people to answer the phones to explain that a certificate will come in the mail, sometime in the future. DirecTV will pay for the certificate stock. DirecTV will pay people to print and mail the certificates. DirecTV will make their customers spend time and money to return the certificates. DirecTV will pay people to answer calls about where the certificates are. DirecTV will pay people to open the envelopes that the certificates are in and post them to accounts. And, inevitably, when certificates are lost or damaged in distribution, lost or damaged in return, or credited to the wrong account, DirecTV will again pay for people to resolve these problems.

DirecTV could have given their customers a warm fuzzy by giving a direct credit. They could have described the process up front (in readable type) and then people could have made an informed decision. Nope. Somebody at DirecTV created an equation that said the promotion wouldn’t cost them as much by doing it this way. Clearly the equation didn’t take into account the loss of customer lifetime value.

As I said, DirecTV is now officially a cable company.

And so much for being a DirecTV advocate.

If you’re like me and work on the creative side of the business, you’d like to believe that good communications and a healthy social dialog are the keys to building relationships and ensuring customer loyalty.

But the fact is, your company is often only as good as the people you have on the front line. One bad experience either in-store, on the phone, or via an online chat, can often tarnish even your best marketing efforts.

Take  Comcast. Is there any company whose customer service reputation swings more wildly across the great/terrible spectrum? Comcast has been both vilified for its customer service via the infamous “Comcast must die” Web site and glorified for its prompt @comcastcares replies on Twitter.

Which brings me to a recent personal encounter I had with the cable conglomerate. I’m a decade long Comcast customer and in April I found that two channels we occasionally watched at home, MSNBC and AMC, had disappeared from our two televisions that did not have a dedicated cable box. I called 1-800-COMCAST and was told that I needed a digital converter to continue receiving these channels and could pick one up for free—by going to the dreaded local Comcast office.

What’s most off-putting about this office isn’t the untouched-since-the-‘70s interior or the unsmiling, laconic customer service reps—it’s, I kid you not, the counter-to-ceiling wall of thick bullet-proof glass the reps sit behind. It’s the kind of set-up you see on TV in the visiting rooms of prisons, complete with vented portholes through which you talk to the person opposite you. It serves as a quite literal barrier to developing any kind of customer rapport, and gets you wondering why they need this kind of security in the first place.

So anyway, I went to the office to get my free converters—only to have the customer service rep behind the wall of glass tell me, with an unmistakable I-hate-my-job vibe, “we’re out of them, you need to come back in January”. A 9-month wait!

From the parking lot I made a call to 1-800-COMCAST to complain and received an apology. I was told that the converters were on order and should in fact be ready in September, a slightly more tolerable 5 months away.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Using Instant Chat at the Comcast Web site, I check to see if the converters might be ready. After being passed from one associate to another more versed with the converters, I’m informed they’re now available and I can have them shipped to my home. Yes! Only, after confirming my address, I’m told that, oops, they can’t mail the converters to my area (for a reason never explained) and that I need to contact my local office to see if they have them.

“Wait a second,” I chat back, “I don’t want to contact my local office, that’s why I’m talking to you.” A canned response is sent back to me to the effect, “I am so sorry about your situation. I know you’re frustrated, but you need to contact your local office. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Yes, for starters you can drop the canned faux sincerity. Then, you can break the rules and ship me my free converters. OR you can contact the local office for me and see if they have the converters. After all, I started our conversation by telling you that I was very tempted by a money-saving Verizon triple play offer I was receiving in the mail 3 or 4 times a week. Hint: You’re in danger of losing me as a long-time customer!

Funny thing is, I call 1-800-COMCAST an hour or so later on an unrelated Internet issue. And, after addressing the problem, the customer service rep quickly switches subjects. “Sir, I see you’re having an issue getting digital converters. Can I have them mailed to you in the next two weeks?” Shocked, I reply “Yes, you can, thank you.”

Sometimes Comcast offers terrible customer service. Sometimes Comcast offers great customer service. And sometimes you get to see both of them in the very same day. But my guess is, most customers only see one side. And if it’s the terrible side, they don’t stay customers for very long.

(Now, let’s see if I get my converters!)

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas

A thought provoking email hit my inbox the other day. Written by David Baker, Vice President of email solutions at Avenue A/Razorfish, the title “What is Loyalty Marketing Today?” caught my eye. You can read the post at http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/?p=672 and it might be worth a visit to David’s blog.

The premise was similar to a question posed by a banker at the Millennial Financial Services Forum. As many discussions around consumer marketing tend to do, the subject at the conference had turned to loyalty programs, what tactics work, how to manage their cost, and what new approaches are around the corner. “So, do these programs really work or do they just take away margin from the sponsor?” was the question thrown to the group.

The question posed by David Baker was prompted by the saturation of similarly constructed programs in today’s market by asking “What are the keys to a great loyalty program?” and “What will the future of loyalty programs be?”

Taking these in order, the sad nature of the banker’s question is that she was asking based on her accumulated experiences with poorly executed programs. If every bank has a credit card program that earns 1 point per dollar which may eventually be redeemed for items in an online catalog, then what is the point? Where is the differentiation? And, how does one bank gain advantage over another or, as she suggests, are they all just eroding margin by participating in a game they are forced to play?

The industry is long overdue for innovative tactics that will draw new attention to rewards programs and re-energize cardholders towards their rewards. At the same time, the massive stores of data that are currently possessed by card issuers has been vastly underutilized. From the mailings I receive, it appears to me that they are either generated from a risk management standpoint (credit line increases, courtesy checks, etc) or are travel offers that lack personalization. It would take a very small effort to learn that I am not a golfer in order that the issuer could stop sending me offers having to do with the little white ball.

The best part about David Baker’s questions is that he offered his own answers. He polled his team and shared a short list of highlights. Reading the responses, it is clear to me that the “keys to a great loyalty program” are many and that loyalty is going to be created as part of a holistic effort that includes good customer service, strong value exchange, brand support, social buzz and some form of exclusivity.

The answers to the “future of loyalty” question indicated that personalization will still be important in the digital world, programs will become more narrowly focused and quick hitting, and further differentiation is needed.

The sum of these answers reinforces the need for change and innovation in the industry. And, unlocking knowledge of how Millennials make purchase decisions and create brand preference represents the foundation to success with this large population group.

Can you hear the footsteps of nearly 80 million people? It might be the sound of Generation Y running away from your current loyalty offer. It’s time to invest in this budding consumer group and meet them on their turf, whether through use of social media or their mobile phone.

The future is now…..Bill Hanifin