I received a bill yesterday from the folks at Exxon/Mobil. It’s my regular monthly credit card bill except this one wasn’t so regular since the $50 bill also had a $35 fee appended to it because apparently the payment got there a day late. OK, so maybe I should have told the bank to send them the money a day earlier but I didn’t and, frankly, the business lesson isn’t about the bank and electronic payment.We can have a long discussion about my doing business with Exxon/Mobil. Suffice it to say that my late father-in-law worked at Mobil for a long time, this was the first credit card I got coming out of college, and I don’t patronize them nearly much as I used to since I began driving a hybrid car. But obviously I have been a customer for a long time and, with four drivers in the house, a pretty good one at that. So I was curious what would happen when I called to see if some consideration would be given to those facts and the lifetime value of my being a customer.
I could give you a long-winded explanation of what I mean here but Wikipedia has it succinctly:
Use of customer lifetime value as a marketing metric tends to place greater emphasis on customer service and long-term customer satisfaction, rather than on maximizing short-term sales.
In my mind, there is no other way to think about customers unless you’re planning on being out of business in a month. So when I got the rep on the phone, whose name was Keith coincidentally, part of the conversation was agreement on the facts (I was a day late and yes, $35 on a $50 bill is kind of steep but it’s a flat fee) and then he said “well, you have no other late fees in the last six months and you’ve been a good customer so I’m going to credit you the fee as a one-time courtesy.”
While Big Oil has many many many flaws, apparently whomever is in charge of customer service gets it. Today, gas is more of a price-sensitive commodity than ever and it would be just as easy for me to pull into some other, less-expensive place and use another credit card to pay (although I do like the Speedpass thing). The $35 they just reinvested in securing my business is smart since they’ll make more than that on me in profit over the next month or so.
How is your decision-making when dealing with customers? Long-term or short? Lifetime value or this sale?
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Consult Keith 
I had a similar experience with MBNA on a one-day late payment. USAA, which has ALL of my financial business, has earned my loyalty with similar efforts, sometimes without even being asked.
I once earned a significant fee by auto-debiting a savings account for purchase of several different mutual funds as part of an annual IRA contribution. I didn’t realize each fund would be counted as a separate wire transfer. USAA sent me a letter explaining the policy, and also explaining that they would not charge me any of the fees since it was a first-time mistake. Of course USAA didn’t come by its reputation for best-in-class customer service organization for nothing.
I have rewarded USAA with even more of my business: auto, homeowners, mortgage, home equity line, brokerage, life insurance etc.