The Value of a Customer...or not!

When my beautiful wife and I were married in 1975 and moved into our first apartment on Secor Road in Toledo, Ohio, we selected Buckeye Cable for our television service.

When we later moved into our Toledo house, we selected Buckeye Cable for our television service. I can remember holding our infant son while watching the same handful of news stories rotate every 10 minutes or so, because that was one of the few choices available to watch on local cable, until of course the early days of M-TV arrived….which we watched on Buckeye Cable. 

Last June the place where my wife worked closed after being acquired by a similar company, and she has not worked outside the home since.  We have taken other steps to replace her income and enhance mine, the next phase of which begins on February 14 (which, this year, is both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday).  

However, we have fallen two months behind on our cable payment, and the good folks at Buckeye call multiple times a day to remind us of that, which they have every right to do.  Not hiding from the truth and the reality that we owed Buckeye money, my wife did call them back and told them that we would be paying our bill on February 14 when our new revenue stream begins.   She was told our service - - TV, phone and internet - - was scheduled to be turned off on February 13, and they would not wait until February 14.

Then they shut off all our services today, February 6.

I’m not sure exactly how much our monthly  cable bills were back in the 1970’s, and 1980’s, and 1990’s, and 2000’s and the 2000-teens.  I’m sure the monthly payment for years was well over $100, and I think the monthly payment now is about $200.  So even if we conservatively average our payment over the years to be $125/month, that means that we have paid Buckeye Cable at least $63,000 over the years. 

Sixty-three-thousand-dollars.

I fully realize that Buckeye Cable (I believe it’s Buckeye Broadband now) is not a charity, is a big business, and has every right to disconnect my services due to my being behind on payments.

But when I had my own business, if I had a customer who spent even $1,000 with me over a year or two, I thought I had a good customer…one I valued.  I guess 40+ years of being a loyal customer, especially when there are so many other available options today, and tens and tens of thousands of dollars paid to them, doesn’t quite qualify me for that recognition by Buckeye.  

UPDATE: One week after the above post, Buckeye turned our services back on because of this blog post.  Since I publicized how they had not valued me, I must publicly thank them for listening and positively responding to my message.  Good to know some major companies truly listen to their customers.  Thanks Buckeye!