Well, I finally did it.  After almost 20 years of using the Day Timer time management system instead of Franklin, I made the switch — which probably isn’t remarkable until you know the circumstances.  I love Day Timers format.  I’ve used it forever and I prefer it.  Always have, always will.  I have never cared for Franklin day planners — still don’t, probably never will.

So why did I switch?  The answer is easy.  Last year about this time I ordered a new set of Day Timer inserts online.  They came, and within two weeks I was receiving about two to three emails a week from Day Timer promoting me on everything they could think of.  It’s like ordering from them had created this gigantic spam machine that couldn’t be turned off.  I opted out on their website.  It didn’t work.  I opted out again.  It didn’t work.  I called the company and told them to get me off their list.  It didn’t work.  I called my email provider and had them mark anything from Day Timers as spam.  I think I’ve got it turned off.

But the thing that’s really turned off is me.  I wouldn’t go back to Day Timers if they were the only ones in the entire world offering time management tools.  It’s kind of sad, after 20 years, to say goodbye forever to an old friend.  But what choice do I have?  The moral to this story is even though you have the best product, even though you have a customer base that’s been with you for decades, even though you you lead the field, you can still drive your customers away.

If you don’t learn anything else from reading this blog, I hope you will take away that customer service is everything.  Without the customer, you don’t have a business.  The customers are your business.  They’re not an inconvenience.  They’re not something you also do.  They’re not something you can abuse (or even take lightly for that matter.)  They are your business.  If that fact ever slips from your current consciousness, you risk losing every one of them — maybe not all at once.  But over time, you risk losing your customers (just like Day Timer did with me.)  One day you wake up and you have no customers.  Since you’re in the customer service business, you have no business.  That would be especially disheartening, since it’s all avoidable.