Rewarding customer loyalty: how to do it the right way...and the wrong way

mrtrexy

In light of... recent events... I wanted to share a few things I have learned personally, working in the customer service and public relations fields for the last decade.

Let's say you own a business. And let's say you want to reward some of your customer base for their "loyalty".

There are two really simple ways to do it the right way:

1: using a clearly understood method of qualification

2: using a method that is equally applied to everyone who meets the qualifications

We actually have a really great example of the "right" way to do this in the veteran reward program for this game. The method of qualification is clearly spelled out and clear. And it is equally applied to everyone who meets the qualifications(either of actual time or purchasing a LTS).

As you might guess, the wrong way to do it is the opposite of the two points above:

1: using a secret/unclear method of qualification

2: using a method that is not equally applied to everyone

To understand why the "wrong" way is actually wrong, I would like to discuss each point, and what makes them "wrong":

1: if you use a secret/unclear method of qualification, this prevents people who actually qualify but didn't get their reward from being aware of the situation and resolving it. If you have someone who actually meets your "secret" qualifications, but some bug in the system has prevented them from getting them, that person has no way of knowing they were supposed to get them in the first place, because they don't know what the qualifications are, and that person therefore has no way to submit a bug report to resolve the situation.

2A: Now, we all know life is not fair, right? Some people's houses get destroyed by tornados while others don't. There are some things in the word we just can't control, and will never be fair. But there are also some things we CAN control. So just because there are unfair things that may happen that are outside of our control does not mean we shouldn't try to be fair in the things we can control, and this game's reward system is something Cryptic can control. They can choose to apply it equally and fairly, or otherwise.

2B: Using the "recent events" as an example, we have people who say they have spent tons of money getting the reward, we have people who say they have spent little to no money getting the reward, we have people who have played for a long time getting the reward, we have people who have not played as long getting the reward, and we also have people who the devs might "like" more than others due to their contributions to the game and it's promotion getting the reward. We also have people in all of those groups who didn't get the reward at all. Having a method of qualification that is not equally applied to everyone who meets it creates unpleasant feelings in a community. And while there will always be "jealousy" and "immaturity", there is no need to actually encourage those things by using an unfair system that is not equally applied.

Concluding comments: I'm not here to say Cryptic are bad people or they don't know what they are doing. All I hope is that the people who are in charge and make decisions can learn from this situation, and hopefully improve the way they do things in the future.

askray

We don't need more threads about this.

/closed