Word-of-Mouth marketing is not a 1 time event.

It's an ongoing activity. And, if it's not, the damage that can be done could be worse than if you hadn't begun a WOM effort to begin with. Of course, if you don't do that, you're headed to irrelevance.

Guess that leaves no choice, eh?

I really wish my wonderful experience with T-mobile hadn't taken a turn for the worse.

But, it has. It's inconsistent. And that's not good.

After hanging up with the fantastic customer service rep, I had 3 expectations.

1. she would call the loyalty department as an advocate on my behalf. Then, they would call me to say that my new phone was on the way
2. the rep would start my plan on the optimal day, as we had discussed
3. after blogging the story and emailing it to the CEO, that I'd hear something back.

Let's start with #3.

I emailed the CEO twice. Nothing. Not even a "hey, thanks." Kind of demoralizing.

#2 is TBD, so we'll see what happens.

On #1, big strikeout. I hadn't received any word, so I called back.

The loyalty rep said, "I don't see anything here in the notes and I'm afraid we can't give you a phone for less than $40 and a 1 year contract."

Bummer.

Am I leaving T-mobile over this?

No.

Is my enthusiasm as a "raving fan" for T-mobile as a "brand worth a weekend" diminished? Yes.

Fickle, maybe, but am I so different than any other customer today?