The Same Answer in Ten Years

Abstract

Most of a company's decisions are made under conditions so similar to each other that they carry almost no information. The pricing call in Q2 resembles the pricing call in Q3. A customer watching ten of those learns roughly what they learned from one. The series that actually generates trust is much shorter than the decision log, because only four kinds of event supply the variation that makes a repeated answer meaningful. The first is the acquisition. When a company changes hands, every promise it made is up for renegotiation by a party who did not make it and who paid a price premised on extracting more than the seller was extracting. Customers know this, which is why acquisition announcements are followed by a measurable pause in commitment — renewals slow, integrations stall, procurement adds a clause. The answer being tested is: does the promise survive a change in the identity of the promiser? For most acquisitions it does not, and the erosion is usually not announced. Terms of service get revised. The support number routes differently.