How Creating a Bad Customer Experience Cost this University Millions

A story came up in my mastermind group yesterday that actually quantified how powerful a customer experience is.

Somehow in the course of this discussion, we were talking about education and how insane of a business model universities have; where you actually BEG the organization to accept you so that you can pay them tens of thousands of dollars – and then get very little support or service after the fact.

One of our members said that it was his mission to personally take as much money as he possibly could from the "BIG NAME" university where he got his law degree.  When I asked him why he hated this school so much, he went on to explain that his law school experience was miserable (but whose isn’t he also said).  I would imagine, miserable from the perspective that if you’re paying someone to deliver knowledge in this case, then that process needs to be effective.  Then, even after advertising their placement and assistance services – nothing.

As if that wasn’t enough, when it came time to make the final payment on the loan – they wouldn’t take it early without charging a fee.  Then an error caused them to continue billing $0.00 for years.

"So, " my friend said "This experience was so painful, so stupid and so lengthy, that I’m not giving them one more cent.  I’m going to make it my mission to take as much money FROM them as possible."

Since this guy is a labor attorney, he LOVES taking on cases against his alma mater.  To date he says he’s ahead by over a million dollars.

WOW – have you created any customer enemies with the experience your systems provide?