Quicken Loans Archives | Ping! >> Loyalty Science in Practice

Last week, I used my unpleasant mortgage application experience with Quicken Loans to demonstrate the danger of force locking in consumers instead of fostering loyalty. Since then, I have received some interesting communication from Quicken Loans. As a consumer, I emerged from the entire experience feeling OK again about Quicken Loans as a lender. While Quicken Loans had lost us as a customer for this mortgage because we already chose another lender, it successfully averted future negative word-of-mouth and ill will against the company. I detail my experience in this post as a case study of how companies can use social media to discover and address service failures and customer dissatisfaction.

Chronology
June 29 My unpleasant phone conversation with a Quicken Loans customer service representative
June 30 My blog on the experience as well as negative review on Epinions.com (note: consumers act fast when they feel unhappy)
July 1 Kelly at QuickenLoans commented on my Epinions.com review, offering to look into the problem and requesting more information from me
July 2 I emailed Kelly with full details of the incident
July 6 (after Independence Day Holiday weekend) I received a call as well as an email from Scott King, Lead Client Advocate at Quicken Loans. He had listened to my original conversation with their customer representative and read my blog. In the phone call and email, he apologized for our unpleasant experience and offered to introduce us to one of their best mortgage banker for a second chance.

The Response
You can read Kelly’s original comment on Epinions.com. With Scott’s permission, I am publishing his email response below: Continue reading “Averting Service Disasters – Quicken Loans the Sequel”

Recently, while trying to obtain a mortgage, I spoke with a Quicken Loans customer service representative named Jorge (I omitted the last name here to save him some dignity). On the phone, I told him that we have not decided on a lender and that we wanted to get an idea of what Quicken Loans had to offer. Our intention was to shop around for the best deal AND service. Apparently, the fact that we are smart shoppers did not rest well with Mr. Jorge. He immediately asked us for a commitment that we are going to work with Quicken Loans if he were to spend any time working with us. When I told him that we cannot make such a commitment at this time, he refused to work with us. Needless to say, I finished my conversation with him quickly and crossed out Quicken Loans as a candidate lender.

What Mr. Jorge is trying to do is not uncommon in the business world — he is trying to lock in customers (or in my case, potential customers). Wireless companies do the same thing, by locking up our phones so that they can only be used with a specific provider. This attempt at locking in customers is not without a good reason. After all, today’s consumers are very fickle. Combined with the wealth of information we can find online and through social networks, we are given the power to choose the best service at the best price. So naturally companies want to create some kind of switching barrier so that we won’t go somewhere else.

Handcuffed
Image by mskogly | CC 2.0

The question is how effective such a switching barrier really is. The answer is: not very effective at all. Continue reading “Lock in vs. Loyalty”

About Yuping

Yuping Liu-Thompkins, Ph.D. is Professor of Marketing & Director of Loyalty Science Lab at Old Dominion University. Dr. Yuping Liu-Thompkins is an expert on building customer loyalty and habit through effective marketing programs. She specializes in turning customer data into useful customer insights and actionable customer relationship management and marketing strategies. With a personal passion for technology, Dr. Liu-Thompkins is also known for her expertise in digital marketing, especially the use of social media for branding and customer engagement purposes. Read more about Dr. Liu-Thompkins on the About Yuping page.