Remember the People Who Got You Where You Are

I was watching a tech show recently that was doing some video game reviews. Something they mentioned was a recent complaint being raised by many fans of a series called Diablo.

The company that makes this series of games, Blizzard, recently released a lot of information on the third game in the series set to be released some time in the near future. They showed a trailer of the new game to showcase all of the differences between the new one and the one that came before it.

The problem arose from a core group of people who loved the first two games and felt that Blizzard was abandoning them with the new game. How were they doing this? The style of the first games were very dark and gothic, while the new one was far brighter and friendly looking. It appears as if the company is trying to reach a broader audience by lightening the overall look of the game, something fans of the earlier games are displeased with. In fact, they currently have an online petition they’re going to send to the company with thirty thousand signatures on it already.

What’s the lesson here? These people are hurt by the fact that they feel the company doesn’t care about them anymore. They’re some of the people who helped make the company into the giant that it is by supporting the earlier games when they weren’t as well known. Now that the company is big these people are having their opinions ignored in favor of something that will appeal more to the general public.

Whenever you release something new there is always going to be the risk that you alienate your loyal customers if you don’t give them the attention they need. When you use color printing to send out those advertisements you may be met with a backlash from the people you thought were going to support you the most if you take that support for granted.

It’s easy to lose sight of the people who are already shopping with you because most companies focus their color printing on getting new customers. Why would you advertise to people who are already giving you plenty of business?

Too often this ends up losing a company more business than they bring in with new customers. If your company is small enough you may find that every sale is going to be important to you and every customer will be highly valued.

In a case like this you need to be extra careful about never forgetting that the people who are loyal to you are the ones that helped establish you in the marketplace to begin with. These are the people you need to be rewarding, not ignoring.

Even major companies like Blizzard can suffer from this problem if they aren’t careful. What kind of long term affect this will have on the company remains to be seen, but odds are good if they keep ignoring their loyal customers, they might end up losing as many customers as they gain. Don’t let this happen to your company.