Tag: loyalty

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Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling

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Yes, it pays to keep customers smiling—even in the midstream.

As midstream activity marches on in North America, customers show preferences for providers with strong operating and project-development skills. Professionalism also matters.

The need for solutions is diverse and widespread. Constraints in West Texas―ground zero of U.S. shale-oil production―crimp output. Natural gas in Appalachia seeks conditioning and outlets. Gulf Coast petrochemical and LNG facilities demand feedstock. Canadian producers beg for market access. Continue reading “Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling”

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Travelers on a Road to Nowhere

Photo of a highway road leading to nowhere.

This post was updated on June 24, 2019. 

Imagine a contest between two horses. History suggests one of the animals, having lost most of its races to the competitor, is the slower of the two. You are given even odds. Would you bet on the reliably slower horse?
 
The answer, of course, is no. Only a glutton for punishment would take even odds on a horse that’s expected to lose.

Continue reading “Travelers on a Road to Nowhere”

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The Low-down on Sizing Up Suppliers

Big vs. Small Suppliers

Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath offers interesting perspective on how those possessing seemingly little in the way of resources can successfully take on more established players using their size and ingenuity to their advantage.

The promise of the little guy is certainly germane to the oil and gas industry. If a company or individual has an idea they believe has merit, there’s little to keep them from pursuing their idea in the oilfield. And if their products or services are good enough, customers will eventually beat a path to their door. Continue reading “The Low-down on Sizing Up Suppliers”

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A Matter Of Expectations

Customer Expectations

A lot of life is about expectations — when they are not met, we tend to react negatively. Business is the same way. While it might feel good to make lofty claims concerning the reliability, value or benefit of our products or services, if doing so leads to unrealistically high customer expectations, we’re doing ourselves and our customers a disfavor.

One of the questions EnergyPoint gets most often concerning its survey results is why certain oilfield suppliers perceived as having strong technology fare so modestly, or even poorly, in our annual customer satisfaction rankings of oilfield suppliers. The answer has to do with who’s setting the customers’ expectations around the technology — the company or the market place? Continue reading “A Matter Of Expectations”

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Thanks, But It Misses the Point – Part 2

Missing the Point

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed how restaurants’ practice of constantly refilling iced tea glasses without first asking can actually leads to a diminished customer experience for some.  We also hinted that we thought customers of oilfield suppliers could relate to this lesson.  We want to use the second part of this article to explain how.

When an organization decides it wants to address customer satisfaction, the process it follows can have a big impact on whether its succeeds.  When management does not think through and get involved in the process — opting instead for vague directives to “better serve our customers” or “create greater customer intimacy” — the results can prove ineffectual and even counterproductive. Continue reading “Thanks, But It Misses the Point – Part 2”

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Thanks, But It Misses the Point – Part 1

Missing the Point

I like iced tea.  In fact, I like it a lot.  Over the course of a hot Houston summer, I bet I drink a thousand glasses of iced tea, each with just the right amount of self-administered artificial sweetener.  Because I eat out a lot, and tend to frequent the same places on a regular basis, most of the eateries in my neighborhood are familiar with my voracious thirst for the stuff as a customer.

Over this most recent summer, I took note of a practice related to how some restaurants handle the refilling of my iced tea.  Their approach is illustrative of how companies’ policies and practices, many meant to better serve customers in one way or another, can actually cause more problems than they solve. Continue reading “Thanks, But It Misses the Point – Part 1”

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Off Target In The Aftermarket

Off Target

Listening to earnings calls of today’s publicly traded oilfield suppliers, it’s easy to come away with the impression that within certain original equipment manufacturers’ post-sale support function has little to do with ensuring customers get the most and best use of the products they purchase. Rather, the function seems more about collecting outsize incremental revenues designed to juice margins.

A number of suppliers openly boast to their investors (but we suspect not to customers) that the increasingly high-tech features embedded in many of today’s oilfield products are good for business expressly because of the future maintenance income attached to the products. Continue reading “Off Target In The Aftermarket”