I’m thinking about customer service, customer loyalty, and long-term relationships. A guy from the phone company came through our neighborhood last week trying to sign people up for their new fiber optic internet connection. Back when I was on dial-up connection and checked about the availability of DSL, I checked the box for the phone company to let me know when it was available for our house—which is inside the city limits. It never happened and I’ve had cable internet for some time. Broadband service providers and wireless phone companies are two of the examples of enterprises that seem driven by getting new business by hyping their latest/greatest. I think competition and free enterprise are good things, but I’m wondering what’s happening to the principle that it’s much more efficient to keep a customer than to get a new one or to get a customer back after you have lost them. Proselytizing has a bad name in religious circles, but it seems to be the modus operandi in some industries. And we all know who’s paying for all that advertising telling people to switch.