In Hugh Macleod’s blog “Your customer won’t take a bullet for you” (love that title), he states that “If you want to benefit from a customer’s loyalty, you can’t bribe it, you must earn it. Deserve it. Focus not on upgrading your product but upgrading your user’s capabilities.” Hugh goes on and states that “Instead of ‘rewarding the customer’ focus on ‘how can I make the user’s experience and result more rewarding’?”
Especially in today’s market, where the customer controls the conversation with social media, companies need to focus on how they make peoples lives better. Not because it is ultimately the right thing to do but is it good business.