It’s hard to gain new customers, but it’s even harder to keep existing ones. I was about to switch to another hosting company this morning, but a 5-minute online chat stopped me from making this decision.

If you own a website/blog, you should know that the customer lifetime value in web hosting industry is very high, which means one customer can bring hosting company long-term revenue, similar to mobile network companies. This is why hosting companies invest so much in customer relationships to keep existing customers happy.

I was thinking about switching all my hosting services to mediaTemple because of their great reputation on speed, and all the positive comments I heard from friends. I even contacted them for information about the services and they responded me in no time. I was going to switch when this current hosting plan expires, which will be next week.
As I was trying to create my Posterous blog (which will be launched soon) with this current hosting with IXwebhosting, I had problem with the DNS settings, so I got on to the 24/7 online support. In 2 seconds, one of the representatives greeted me and asked how he could help, I told him the problem and he set up everything for me from his side in 5 minutes in excellent manner!

I was very impressed and promised him that I would publicly thank Vadim Chichkanov from IXwebhosting.
So that quick 5 minute chat kept me for at least 2 more years in their company.

Do you still remember those times when you saw interesting advertisement on TV about this new “discman”, which made you wanted to run to the electronic store immediately and learn everything about it? Yes, that was the time when sales reps were on high demand. Consumer electronics sales rep jobs are slowly declining because of the rise of social media.

10 years ago

Sales reps were THE big investments and assets retail companies had during those times because they…

• were the knowledgeable ones
• educated potential customers about products
• convinced customers with their speaking skills to increase sales
• controlled the customer relationship being “frontline employees”

The Digital Age

Thanks to the Internet! Online affiliates, bloggers, Twitterers and other content creators made it extremely easy for potential customers to search for product information and reviews. Personal reviews and word of mouth are more trustworthy sources for consumers, which influence their purchase decisions way more than anything a sales people had to say.

Many consumers these days do research online before purchases, or even make the purchases online for consumer electronics. Therefore, many customers go into stores (full of knowledge), make the purchase, and leave.

Graph below shows the declining of retail sales industry (consumer elctronics):