Today I read a response to a post on altering your message, product, brand on mpdailyfix.

It got me thinking a bit more about price is often considered the determining factor when making purchasing decisions. That is a very easy tact to take, because it requires less analysis of customers and what they need, but it’s much harder in that you seem to compete in a battle of economies of scale more than anything else.

Ava was talking to me on the phone tonight and told me our original zuoyuezi center (a semi-hotel where Taiwanese ladies go to recover after giving birth) had called her.

When Ava had called them a few months back, while arranging to find a place, they never had a room ready for us to see and finally the third time, the lady suggested we go and check out another center.

So we did, and made the deposit at the other one.

Today the first place called Ava back and were a little disappointed that she’d gone to the other place. She was more shocked when she found out that they had been recommended to us, we had tried to go a few times already and had then been told to look elsewhere.

They offered a big discount to try and tempt us back, but as Ava told me, “They have already destroyed any trust. If I have to spend a month there, and leave my baby in their care, I have to trust them. If it’s so easy to tell me to move on to somewhere else, it feels like they don’t care, and I don’t want someone like that taking care of my child.”

I agree. Money ain’t everything.