Making phone calls, sending post cards or ending missives with "Oh and by the way" may arguably work once in a while but never really penetrate the emotional membrane and fertilize the loyalty egg.

To create loyalty in real estate, agents are going to need stronger swimmers.

I have two answers to that question:

1. “Clients that inquire about your services are not leads, they are People.”
I grew up in this business and I speak to real estate consumers all the time. They feel used, ignored, oversold and generally disenfranchised (I’m paraphrasing Davison’s popular viral video). Nearly everyone I know that hasn’t completely tuned out real estate has heard the story of the consumers in San Diego who are suing their realtor. It’s a popular story because people feel trapped in a gilded cage and they’re looking for someone to blame. The real estate community needs to accept that people are more important than data and act accordingly.

2. “If you want more business go ‘Back to The Future’.”
Professionals may not realize this, but the vast majority of their potential business is stowed away in the database of past clients. It’s a fact. NAR studies prove that you’re more than four times more likely to get new business from a referral than from online sources, signage, advertising and direct mail combined. In light of the slowdown, everyone in the industry should be reconnecting with past clients in a genuine way without overtly pushing their services.

If any of us expect to remain in this industry five years from now, we better abandon the “next deal” philosophy and stop taking our clients for granted. If we continue to treat people like data, we shouldn’t be surprised when they re-negotiate the Consumer/Professional relationship.

Think about it. Do they respect us any more than they respected their travel agents 10 years ago? Travel agents became all but extinct because there was no loyalty. You never know” maybe executives from a company like Expedia will try to enact similar changes in our industry. I say, let them serve up all the data they want, because it doesn’t matter if your people are loyal to you.

Considering now how this is happening to so many people, it's clear they have no intention of doing anything about it either.

It's a shame when company are handed opportunities like this to do something profound and all they do is drop the ball.

I had to pay my way through college and, although I disliked being duct taped to the restaurant biz because of the flexible hours/good money, it was invaluable experience. To this day, it is still my rule to correct any bad service-related issue + 1. The plus one is the over-the-top move that is totally unexpected and very much appreciated.

In your example, the service rep would have credited the overage charges + your month of service. Would that have helped your opinion of Verizon?