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What do elephants and unhappy customers have in common?
In May, the magazine Pro Football Weekly rolled off the press for the very last time. Hub Arkush was its publisher and editor. His dad began the magazine in 1967. He met his wife working there. Two of his brothers met their wives working their too. Hub's kids have had careers at the magazine. It was quite the family affair.
Forty-six years. That's a long time. Hub wrote a farewell article on PFW's website in May. I did not subscribe to the magazine so I just came across it last week.
It was obviously a painful article for him to write. The bottom line was financial, of course. As Hub wrote, "We built some truly great stuff that you all seemed to love, but try as we might, we couldn't get enough of you to pay what it cost us to deliver it."
Beneath the article was the comment section. I expected to read nostalgic entries commiserating with the sorrow of the magazine's failure. There were those.
What I didn't expect to find were ones like this:
"I started buying your dad's paper in the late 60s when it was cutting edge pro football news. In the mid 80s, your dad wrote me a letter asking me to help stake him through a tough time. I was going through my own tough time--going through a divorce and living in my folks' basement. I sent in $100. In less than a month, PFW went broke and I was told I had to pay again if I wanted any more papers. Your dad screwed a lot of loyal subscribers. You couldn't keep up with the world of the internet. I feel that karma has been served."
And this:
"I was one of the ones who got screwed way back when. Got a brand new subscription then got a notice that PFW went out of business. A couple of months later it was back on the newsstands. When I asked about my subscription I was told it was a new owner and I was out of luck. I was pissed."
One more:
"I was one of the people who, many years ago, bought a lifetime subscription to the mag only to have the company go out of business and leave us holding the bag."
Wow! Spit on someone's grave why don't you? People were "left holding the bag" almost thirty years ago! And it illustrates a truth about customers. Swallow these numbers if you dare...
The average unhappy customer will share his/her experience with 9 people. Those 9 will tell 5 more. That means an average of 46 people will know about the problem.
Additionally, 13% will tell over 20 people.
And there is this...
The average happy customer will remember his/her experience for 18 months.
The average unhappy customer will remember his/her experience for 23.5 years!
If you haven't guessed the answer to the question I put forward at the beginning of this article, let me supply the answer: Elephants...and unhappy customers...never forget.
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