How to Lose Customers

“You look like a bloated Rosie O’Donnell in that. Need a bigger size?”

“Paying in credit? That will be a $100 surcharge. And 20 push-ups.”

“Buy this or I’ll beat you with a slab of raw liver dipped in Spam juice.”

These are a few guaranteed ways to lose me as a customer. Thankfully, Andy Wibbels created the infographic below that shows reasons why customers leave a company.

I’ll resist putting in words the facts and data that are so elegantly represented with charts, so enjoy!

(I must mention, however, how much I enjoy the stat that 1% of customers leave a company because, well, they die. How big do you think the after-life market is for automatically-renewing magazine subscriptions?)

Infographic from GetSatisfaction.com

Yes, I’d Love Some Antioxidant Juice With My Toilet Paper

I was browsing Alice.com today and added toilet paper to my cart. “You

might also like…Sunsteen Mangosteen Antioxidant Juice.” What?! To see if this was an error, I added a different kind of toilet paper. Again, I was encouraged to try out the superfruit juice. Apparently, if you go to the bathroom, you should also remove the oxygen radicals that enter your system every day (not an entirely bad argument…)

Add toilet paper to your cart, Alice.com suggests antioxidant juice

Part of the customer experience (about one-third, actually, according to STELLAService) is providing sleek usability and useful online tools. Alice.com is missing out on the opportunity to increase my purchase by failing to recommend relevant products-how about hand soap? Air freshener? To the moon, Alice!

10 trends we hope stay on our screens & off our streets

Given the shrinking barriers to entry and the hundreds of thousands of e-retailers already out there, companies are continuously searching for ways to differentiate themselves online. At STELLAService, we spend hours everyday analyzing websites and as a result we’ve seen more than our fair share of unique product offerings. For your entertainment, we’ve compiled a few of the latest ideas that have “wowed” us (and not in a great customer service kind of way). We imagine that it would take a lot of guts to buy these, so let’s hope these companies deliver great customer service along with their one-of-a-kind products.

by Ariel & Kelsey

1. When we think of “cute little fur balls” we think of puppies. Not literal fur balls pasted on to a blinding yellow hoodie.
2. The “Kayne West” shades were cool a few years ago – well sort of. But these? Gladiator helmet-sunglasses will never be in style.
3. Surely PETA had a field day with this one…
4. We think someone at Karos Shoes got a little too excited about Valentine’s Day.
5. Half animal, half shoes…? $1400.
6. Louis Vuitton put a $150,000 price tag on old water bottles and cigarette boxes. Hey, at least they’re recycled!
7. We can’t imagine dentists like other people’s teeth enough to wear them as jewelry.
8. We can now cover our eyes with what appears to be disposable sunglasses by designers Azumi & David. We suggest throwing them out before ever wearing them.
9. Who ever said you can’t wear socks with flip flops? With the Sanuk Tube Flops, you get a pair of flip flops with a tube sock sleeve attached, so you actually can wear both at the same time. We hope you still choose not to.
10. Floral prints were a hit this spring, but we’re happy to report that floral printed denim, however, was not.