Remember my post on the cost of a good reputation? It looks as though a few business owners don’t quite grasp the principle of putting the well-being of your customers first. This week, another company caught with its pants down is E.ON. According to the London Paper (a free, daily publication that I read religiously), a senior executive’s response to a question on how high gas and oil prices would be affected by a harsh winter was:

“It will make more money for us.”

This was said at an industry seminar a day before the UK government was due to announce a package tackling fuel poverty.

Now the oil and gas industry is notorious for their obscene profits and less-than-admirable attitude towards its customers but this takes the cake. There’s something seriously wrong when the executive of a company that is supposed to care about its customers makes a remark like that to a room full of people. Granted, it was a seminar presentation and old boy probably wasn’t prepared for the question, but still. Even if it was the nerves talking, the fact that the words could come so easily to his lips in public is a reflection on the attitudes of those at E.ON. The sad part is, this poor idiot is going to be the scapegoat for saying out loud what the bosses are probably thinking.

Anyone want to take a guess at how many of their customers are going to increase the web traffic for uSwitch after reading this? As one of E.ON’s 5.5 million customers contributing to their £877m profit last year I say I’m going to need a lot more than ‘apologising unreservedly for the blunder and considering disciplinary action against the executive’. Talk is cheap. If the damage control crew over at E.ON have any desire to minimise the potentially devastating effects of this gaffe then they’d seriously have to start counting the cost of having a good reputation. Moral of the story?

Money should never take precedence over the well-being of your customers.

It’s customer first, making money second. Take care of the first and the other will follow like a faithful puppy. It’s practically a scientific fact.