More customers doesn't make you a better company

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MarketingProfs Audience I’ve been shopping around the past few days for a terrific lead automation system for the day job, looking at all of the different vendors out there. One thread that’s been common among all of the comparison discussions on LinkedIn, on blogs, etc. that baffles me is this argument:

“We’re better because we have 42x more customers than any of our competitors, which shows that clearly we are the LEADER in our space!”

This argument makes no sense to me. More customers doesn’t make you a better company. More customers just means you have more customers. In fact, it might make you a worse company. If you and your competitor both have 60 people on staff but you have 42x more customers, all that means is I’m 42x less likely to get customer support when I need it.

If more customers were the benchmark of excellence, we’d all shop only at Wal-Mart for everything in life. They have more customers than anyone, right? Are they the best? If absolute numbers of customers were the mark of truly excellent service, logically wouldn’t the IRS (which has every taxpayer as a “customer”) be the best organization in the country to deal with?

What’s at work here is a bit of Robert Cialdini’s bandwagon influence techniques (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Amazon link). The hope of these marketers, I suppose, is that by seeing lots of people doing business with a company, I’ll be persuaded that it’s somehow better, in the same way that social media “experts” try to convince you that because they’ve got 20,000 followers, they’re somehow more knowledgeable about social media.

Sorry, gang. I’m not buying it. In this day and age when service, support, and care is needed more than ever, more customers as a sole metric of your worth means you just have less time for me.

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Comments

18 responses to “More customers doesn't make you a better company”

July 15, 2010

Jeremy Meyers

More customers is better for THEM, not for their customers. It's a self-centered statement. “Hey, look at how much money we're making! Doesn't that make us good? Our CFO says it makes us good!”

Reply
July 16, 2010

Jeremy Meyers

More customers is better for THEM, not for their customers. It's a self-centered statement. “Hey, look at how much money we're making! Doesn't that make us good? Our CFO says it makes us good!”

Reply
July 16, 2010

Sujit

But here is a paradox – you become a customer if you like the company's offering. This means that more the customers invest in a company's offering, the more likely that it is a good product (within the constraints of price and quality). No customer would buy or like to buy a bad product. So, I think the number of customers is an indirect metric of the quality of the customer's offering.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Kevin Behringer

I agree with both Sujit and Jeremy.

I think that using how many customers you have as your competitive advantage is stupid because it does nothing to illustrate why someone should choose to work with you. At the same time, if a company has significantly more customers than the competition, they're probably doing something right. No company has more customers just because they have more customers. They have more because they are doing something better than the competition and their customer base sees that and chooses them over the competition.

That said, if you are the leader (judged by having more customers) people will find out. They will hear your name over and over when asking people which company to choose. That's the usefulness of a larger customer base.

Don't tell people that you have more customers than your compeition, tell them about the things that helped you get those customers.

Reply
July 16, 2010

danperez

It's not the hope of the marketers, its a fact that bandwagon influence techniques work – and have worked since forever. “#1 Movie in America” “Top-Selling Car in Florida!” “Most-watched Show on TV!” People tend to be comfortable doing what everyone else is doing – or what they believe everyone else is doing. Works in social media too, that's why these self-proclaimed social media “experts” want to amass a ton of followers, “If everyone else is following them, then I should too.” Yes?

Let the companies who have 42x more customers than their competitors pat themselves on the back – they've earned it. And probably did it without any help from social media.

Nuff said.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Sujit

But here is a paradox – you become a customer if you like the company's offering. This means that more the customers invest in a company's offering, the more likely that it is a good product (within the constraints of price and quality). No customer would buy or like to buy a bad product. So, I think the number of customers is an indirect metric of the quality of the customer's offering.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Cindy Watts

Great Blog! I believe that more people think about this, but they do not verbalize it as well as you have.

Thanks for the reminder that marketing tactics are everywhere.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Kevin Behringer

I agree with both Sujit and Jeremy.

I think that using how many customers you have as your competitive advantage is stupid because it does nothing to illustrate why someone should choose to work with you. At the same time, if a company has significantly more customers than the competition, they're probably doing something right. No company has more customers just because they have more customers. They have more because they are doing something better than the competition and their customer base sees that and chooses them over the competition.

That said, if you are the leader (judged by having more customers) people will find out. They will hear your name over and over when asking people which company to choose. That's the usefulness of a larger customer base.

Don't tell people that you have more customers than your compeition, tell them about the things that helped you get those customers.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Dan Perez

It’s not the hope of the marketers, its a fact that bandwagon influence techniques work – and have worked since forever. “#1 Movie in America” “Top-Selling Car in Florida!” “Most-watched Show on TV!” People tend to be comfortable doing what everyone else is doing – or what they believe everyone else is doing. Works in social media too, that’s why these self-proclaimed social media “experts” want to amass a ton of followers, “If everyone else is following them, then I should too.” Yes?

Let the companies who have 42x more customers than their competitors pat themselves on the back – they’ve earned it. And probably did it without any help from social media.

Nuff said.

Reply
July 16, 2010

danperez

It's not the hope of the marketers, its a fact that bandwagon influence techniques work – and have worked since forever. “#1 Movie in America” “Top-Selling Car in Florida!” “Most-watched Show on TV!” People tend to be comfortable doing what everyone else is doing – or what they believe everyone else is doing. Works in social media too, that's why these self-proclaimed social media “experts” want to amass a ton of followers, “If everyone else is following them, then I should too.” Yes?

Let the companies who have 42x more customers than their competitors pat themselves on the back – they've earned it. And probably did it without any help from social media.

Nuff said.

Reply
July 16, 2010

Cindy Watts

Great Blog! I believe that more people think about this, but they do not verbalize it as well as you have.

Thanks for the reminder that marketing tactics are everywhere.

Reply
July 17, 2010

Claudio Alegre

More customers, less time for me? That's pretty good, I think I can use that!

Reply
July 17, 2010

Claudio Alegre

More customers, less time for me? That’s pretty good, I think I can use that!

Reply
July 18, 2010

Jennifer Palais

Great to look at things in a new way…just because we've always gone the “more is better” route doesn't mean it is always so. Sometimes yes, but it is better for customers to continue to be more savvy and companies to realize the blowhorn tactic is wearing thin. Raising the bar for marketers and customers – not such a bad thing.

Reply
July 18, 2010

Jennifer Palais

Great to look at things in a new way…just because we’ve always gone the “more is better” route doesn’t mean it is always so. Sometimes yes, but it is better for customers to continue to be more savvy and companies to realize the blowhorn tactic is wearing thin. Raising the bar for marketers and customers – not such a bad thing.

Reply
July 20, 2010

JustinAtSmile.ly

Agreed. Having the right customer is key because they tend to become influencers.

Reply
July 20, 2010

JustinAtSmile.ly

Agreed. Having the right customer is key because they tend to become influencers.

Reply
July 20, 2010

JustinAtSmile.ly

Agreed. Having the right customer is key because they tend to become influencers.

Reply