Sales and Promotions Mistakes – It Could Be An Opportunity…

Two things happened this week that made me think about customer service and lost opportunities. The first event had to do with paper. I find the best customer service stories in the most mundane situations. Anyway, I was at OfficeMax and saw a wonderful deal. There was a stack of five ream cases of inkjet paper. On top of them was  a sign that said that the paper was $8.99. $8.99 for five reams of inkjet paper is a great price. The ten ream case was something like $35. Wow! While it was a great price, it wasn’t an outlandish one. Not too good to be true just pretty darn good. When I got to the counter, it rang up $30. Wait. What? Turns out it was $8.99 a ream not a case. Someone was supposed to have taken out the individual reams and stacked them outside the cases. Perhaps it said $8.99 a ream but I’m not so sure. Even if this was the case the type was so small as to not be obvious. Taking them out of the cases and stacking them up was supposed to be the obvious part. I declined to buy it and found a good deal elsewhere.

The second event was the arrival of a $15 Best Buy gift card from Napster. Napster had run a promotion on Facebook wherein you friend them and posted something (favorite song or album maybe) and they would send you a 1GB portable music player. Apparently, the response was so huge to the promotion that they ran out of music players and sent gift cards instead.

Both of these situations have two things in common. First, the company appeared to advertise something they could not deliver on. Second, they could not deliver because of a mistake or miscalculation. Now, I don’t have a problem with mistakes. Stuff happens. A lot of folks want to hold a company’s feet to the fire over honest mistakes. Super travel columnist and ombudsmen Christopher Elliott has written a boatload (pun intended) of columns about airlines or hotels that accidently post the wrong price and have angry customers who want a ridiculous rate. His advice is often summed up as “don’t expect something that is so ridiculously cheap it can’t be right.” Reading his blog I always get the feeling that these folks aren’t just looking for a bargain. They know it’s a wrong price and want to take advantage of the company. Whatever the legalities of the situation are you don’t take advantage of someone, even an airline, that way.

What I found most intriguing was the different reactions from OfficeMax and Napster. In the first case, OfficeMax missed out on a great opportunity with a long time customer. When it was obvious that this was a mistake, I no longer had the expectation that they would honor the price on the stack. I know some people who would demand the $8.99 price, even going so far as accusing the store of a bait and switch. That’s not right. Honest mistakes happen and we need to accept that. What OfficeMax could have – should have - done was offer me something, anything. If they had offered, say, a 10% discount on the case I may have bought the paper. Even if I hadn’t, I would have felt that they made an effort to own my business. It’s about showing the love, not what you get. It’s very likely that the store manager and clerk didn’t have the authority to do more than say “Sorry”. Too bad. OfficeMax lost a chance to sell me something and gain a bunch of goodwill. They lost twice.

Napster on the other hand could have just said “Sorry, we ran out.” The promotion’s fine print likely said something akin to “while supplies last”. They clearly know something about goodwill though. Sure, the player was worth more than $15 retail. However, I really don’t need another one and most people signing up probably don’t either. I only wanted it because it was free. By sending me something, anything, for nothing, they sent the message that they really did want my business and I was more to them than a social media marketing opportunity. A perusal through the comments on the Napster Facebook page shows that this worked. While there were a few grumblers, most said “Thanks for the free gift card!” Napster turned a potential marketing mess into an opportunity to connect with potential customers and say “I care about how you feel about Napster! You matter to us. Sorry about the screw up.”

All too often, companies just want to assuage the feelings of upset customers by tossing out a false apology. For them, it’s about making the problem child go away. I had that happen at Best Buy recently. By the time I left the store I was furious at the obviously fake “we’re sorry” that the customer service representative kept spewing mechanically. Instead, mistakes can be a chance to tell customers that you value them. By proactively doing something positive when you make a mistake, you can signal that your customers matter to you.  That builds a bond that is worth much more than the cost of doing something for the customer.

More than anything, just saying “sorry” is meaningless and annoying. You have to do something to demonstrate that you want to make things right. When you make a mistake, do more, say less, and have happier customers.

Lost In The Clouds

Ah! Lost in the clouds again.

Sounds nice right, unless you're a T-Mobile customer. In that case, lost in the clouds means your data was lost during an upgrade. Too bad. Most of the attention in the blogsphere has been centered on how stupid this appears. A lot of folks are railing against how avoidable this was, how best practices for data protection are well known, how unfortunately common this sort of thing is, etc. I wrote a book on that stuff years ago and it was not new then. Well, some of it was new but the basic blocking and tackling wasn't.

The central issue is being avoided though. It's uncomfortable to address if your company is involved in any type of outsourcing, and what major computer company isn't these days. In all the moaning about how Hitachi Data Systems and Microsoft (T-Mobile partners in this fiasco) should have done better, in all the technical details, in all the posturing about best practices, the core problem with outsourcing is being ignored.

Trust.

I don't care if it is Cloud Computing, call centers, data centers, or overnight delivery. When you outsource you have to trust the outsourcer to do as good or better a job as you would. You can't be looking over their shoulder 24/7. They can't have you in their shorts either. For the relationship to work there needs to be a lot of trust.

I have been on both sides of the outsourcing game. When you hand over a mission critical functions to someone else you have to do your homework. You have a duty to make sure that the outsourcer has the capabilities, best practices, and determination to do your business the way you need it done. They have to look out for your interests. It's a relationship that needs attention.

This is the problem with outsourced Cloud Computing. You have to have the expertise to evaluate your outsourcing partners, the time to conduct appraisals and look at references, and people to monitor performance and deal with problems. I'm not saying that T-Mobile didn't do this. Bad things happen to good companies. But with the hype around outsourced clouds, a lot of trust is being handed over to folks whose abilities are barely known. It's like getting married after the first date. And in this case, what happens in Vegas ends up all over the Internet. Like Paris Hilton, but I digress...

What worries me is that a lot of folks will get sucked in by the Cloud Computing hype who are not ready to do it right. I especially worry about smaller outfits with fewer resources. To them, Amazon S3 is a god send (not to pick on Amazon). Or Mozy for that matter. Solves a problem cheap and quick. Just what everyone wants. Don't worry. They're big companies. We can trust them, right? Right...

Trust takes time and effort. Any type of outsourcing, Cloud Computing or otherwise, requires a lot of trust. Go slow, take your time, and get to know each other first. You have the rest of your lives together. No need to rush.

Grinding my Axe on Buy.com

It's sad. Very sad.

When something that has worked well for so long is utterly and inexplicably ruined, one can't help but feel a sense of loss. We feel this when an old friendship disintegrates or we watch a storied brand eaten by a corporate titan (does anyone remember AMC cars? The Rambler was a classic and the Javelin and Pacer at least interesting.) Unfortunately this has happened to Buy.com. Sigh...

Buy.com started life as Buybooks.com in the late-90's. At a time when it was not certain that Amazon.com would dominate online books sales, a number of Internet book sellers popped up. Buybooks.com was one of them. What set them apart was consistently good prices, a web site that gave accurate information, and great customer service. It's a damn shame that this is no longer the case. My experience last week is a case study in how to annoy long-term, loyal customers. After ten years of being just that, I find it sad, terribly sad, to see what they have become.

My son's birthday was coming up. Now that he is a teenager, his toys are looking more like my toys. Since he kept asking about borrowing my MP3 player, I thought it would make a great present for him. As has been my practice when I wanted an electronic gadget, I went up to Buy.com, looked for the item I wanted, checked to see if it was in stock, then ordered it. I carefully figured out how long it would take (worst case) to get here. More than enough time, I said to myself. What I wanted was pretty specific too. The new SanDisk Sansa players allow you to add in SD memory cards. That makes them expandable. Since it is likely that his future music collection will be mostly electronic, the ability to store music on cards and swap them in and out seemed sensible. Think of it as futureproofing. I was definitely pleased with myself.

Ah! The sin of hubris. I should have known that disaster was lurking. As the day approached when I would present this neat little gadget to my first born, I became anxious. The present had not arrived. I check the Buy.com website and - HORRORS - it was listed as "On Order". It had not even shipped! What now? I quickly looked up "On Order" and discovered that it was a euphemism for "we don't have it and don't know when we will have it". Panic time.

I next did what one does in this situation. I went to call customer service. One hitch though. The phone number for customer service is nowhere to be found on the Buy.com site. I'm not some Internet neophyte. I know where they hide these numbers. It simply wasn't there. Well, they can run but they can't hide. I had an old invoice that had the number on it. I double checked the Internet forums (there is a forum for everything) and found the same number. I called the number. I wish I hadn't.

Back in my days in the call center industry, I helped the company I worked for establish an early overseas call center service. Talk about your past coming back to bite you. The Buy.com call center was, shall we say, culturally insensitive. I explained to them that this was a birthday present and I needed it right away. I was treated with indifference and silence. Incredible. Not even "I'm so sorry sir. We apologize for the mix up." Nope. They did not even acknowledge that this was a problem. Their attitude was completely cavalier.

You might be wondering why Buy.com could not ship something that was in stock. Turns out, even though the website says something is in stock, it doesn't mean that it actually is in stock. They only update inventory on the site once a day. I thought they were kidding. Live inventory lookup has been around since Buy.com started business! They even admitted that they had no way of knowing when an out-of-stock item was due in. Once again, I wondered if they were joking. No ETA on popular items? Not even an estimate? No way. How 1970's.

Now, typically when you have an upset customer, especially when they are upset over your screw up, you offer to make them whole. Fix the problem in some concrete way. Sorry. Not happening here. I told them what I wanted since they didn't offer it. I asked for a different unit that was in stock, and which cost the same as the original, with free overnight shipping. Instead they offered me a gift certificate for $10 off my next purchase. Like that will happen before the next ice age. I hung up.

Okay, I can't leave it at that. Not me. So I called back. I figured that if I talked to a manager I might get some satisfaction. What was I thinking? The manager was only slightly less rude. I once again said what I wanted and she claimed she couldn't. Here's where she slipped. She said she had to follow certain cost guidelines. That blew the top off my head. I asked her if she was really willing to lose the entire sale and a long-term customer for the sake of a few bucks. She corrected herself and said it was just guidelines not cost guidelines. Too late! The genie is out of the bottle. Buy.com is willing to nickel and dime their customers. I got that now. Thanks for the moment of honesty.

She offered me the same gift certificate which she said could be used to cover overnight shipping. So I had to order another product and cancel the current one. "Okay", said I, "let's do that". Now, here comes the kicker. Wait for it.... She couldn't do that either! I had to go to the website and do it myself. I was almost speechless, which is unique for me. Customer service can't take an order or cancel a product? That's not right. It's almost unbelievable. I hung up again.

I ran out to a local Circuit City and bought the same thing for ten bucks more. That's ten bucks well worth spending. The clerk was nice. When I couldn't' find what I was looking for on the shelf she went out of her way to find one in the back. Whereas Buy.com had my blood pressure in the stratosphere, this simple act of service made me feel good to be shopping.The clerk even wished my son a happy birthday. I'll go back there.

Buy.com continued to add insult to injury. I canceled my order on the website. Fine. Done with that. Not so. It turns out that they are refusing to cancel the order since it has already "entered the shipping phase". It's shipping... Except that it still hasn't arrived at their warehouse and they can't tell me when it will. It's like a twisted version of a Buddhist koan "How can something be shipping when it is not there to ship?" The email said I could return it, refuse it, or keep it (and presumably pay for it). The chances of me catching the UPS guy to refuse it is negligible and I don't want to keep it. So it's more work on my part just to get my money back from them. I will probably have to wrangle with them for months to come, all the while my money is locked in their vaults.

So what is the point of this lengthy rant? To begin with, it's quite therapeutic. But I don't post stuff like that. I don't want to waste my readers time. Instead, it is here as a warning to companies that hope to shave a few points off their expense lines. Customer service is a bad place to do it. You will lose your most loyal customers and everyone they know. What is gained this quarter in expense reductions will be paid for time and time again in lost revenue. I see so many businesses doing this. They short change customers to make a few pennies float down to the bottom line. They then wonder where all those customers have gone. As Clint Eastwood says in High Plains Drifter, "Out." Recently, someone told me they would never buy anything from Dell again because of similar lousy (outsourced) service. I won't either now that I've heard that.

So, sales and marketing people, when the accountants tell you cut back on service or outsource to someplace overseas, think about what you've read here. Say to yourself "Okay they get the expenses down but how do I make my numbers?" Customer service is that ounce of prevention that keeps customers from flying toward the competition.

Amazon.com wins while Buy.com loses. That's what happens to cheapskates.