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Chasing Away Business… Are Your Employees Making These Mistakes?
by
Joshua Tukel
I received this blind envelope the other day in my mail at home. It appeared to be hand addressed and it had a first class stamp affixed to it. I did not recognize the return address but it was obviously close to my office.
Could it have been from a nearby business acquaintance? Maybe, but why would they be sending it to my home? Naturally, I was curious so I tore it open.
Inside the envelope, I found a marketing piece from a large chain of cellular telephone stores. They have a store near my office. The return address on the envelope just happened to be of that particular store.
Last time I was there was several years ago. As I vaguely recall, it was a frustrating experience. Their product is a commodity and I had since found someone in the same business that was willing to work much harder to maintain my satisfaction, I never went back.
This particular well thought out marketing piece, actually got me into their store. That alone was a huge accomplishment for this retailer. If the envelope identified itself as a marketing piece from them, it would have likely hit my trash can unopened.
My personal reasons for this are simple; 1. I had done business with them in the past. 2. I Was dissatisfied with the experience. 3. There was little that they could say to me that would get me back.
Instead, I opened the envelope. Inside I found a letter indicating that my birthday was this month along with a coupon for $20 of free stuff with no strings attached. I scanned the letter looking for the catch. I couldn’t find one.
What I did find was an explanation of why they wanted to give me $20 in merchandise. I also read the blurb about their employee experts and a comparison of their stores vs others. None of that mattered much to me but the $20 did. Especially, because I happened to need a new car charger for my Blackberry. I folded the coupon in half, put it in my pocket and briefly thought about my week and when I might have time to go in and get my free charger.
Within a few days, I had to leave my office for a meeting which required me to drive directly by this wireless store. I gave myself a few extra minutes and stopped in with the $20 certificate hidden away in my pocket.
I found one employee in the large store who seemed to be engaged in a personal conversation on his cell phone. After a few impatient moments of waiting at the counter with my eyes directly on the employee, he told his friend to “hang on.”
With the phone still to his ear, he asked me how he could help. Although likely unintentionally, he made me feel as if I was interrupting him. It seemed to me that he wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible so he could get back to his telephone conversation.
I asked him if he had a car charger for my Blackberry and I proceeded to take out my phone and show it to him. It’s an older model that has scratches all over it along with a dent or two from the many times it had fallen out of my pocket.
I was told that they had two but neither were in stock. I then asked him for pricing on each. Now his frustration was becoming more apparent as he really seemed to want to get back to his call. He quickly told me that the genuine Verizon model was $34.95 and the generic model was $24.95. I have bought these things before and the pricing seemed extremely high to me.
I tried to continue our conversation with some additional questions but he was already walking away with his back to me. He continued talking on his phone about his plans for that evening after he got off of work.
I have subsequently purchased the genuine charger from a competitor of this store for $14.95. Ironically the exact same price that I would have paid if I had the opportunity to use my $20 gift certificate and assuming the store had the item in stock.
I was so puzzled by what had taken place that as I walked back to my car, I called an executive of the company who was an acquaintance of mine. I was going to congratulate him on the creative marketing but suggest that he follow up with some employee training.
I was sure that an executive of the company would be interested in what had taken place in one of their stores. I left a message with his assistant and my call was never returned. Perhaps someday he will read this and realize why I had called.
What should have happened? 1. There should be no employees allowed to have their cell phones turned on while at work.
2. With all of the training and testing that this store claims they do with the employee “experts,” a good deal of it should focus on dealing with customers. Management should conduct tests of their employees by sending testers into their stores posing as customers. This effort would give management assurances on how well their training and policies are being carried out at the customer level. I strongly encourage this in EVERY business. Your staff may be chasing away your customers without your knowledge.
3. The employee had many opportunities to try to sell me something! After all, they spent money to successfully get me into their store which yielded them nothing. When he saw my old dented scratched up phone, he should have told me about the special on the new model and talked to me about my eligibility for an upgrade. Perhaps ask about my service or my needs to identify a better fit.
He could have checked recent store orders and told me when they were expected in and offer to ship it to me at that time. He could have offered to check with another nearby store.
Any of these simple efforts may have yielded the store a sale instead of a story in our newsletter.
In reviewing the collateral, the envelope is simple. It appears to be hand addressed and even my name is slightly purposely slanted. There is no indication anywhere that it is coming from a business except for the address. I would have had to go through a lot of effort to determine the sender· from the address. It was much easier just to open it. It also has a first class postage stamp affixed. They might have slanted it slightly for better effect. Making the postage stamp appear sloppy will always increase your open rate! The coupon has a great headline “FREE” that is backed up with ensuring text and a great call to action (Expires: September 30).
There are no complicated hoops that would turn off their prospect. The back has a map, the address and business hours. This company only makes money when the customer comes into the store. The letter makes claims that in my experience are simply not believable.
False claims in your advertising should be avoided at all costs. They may get you one sale, but a sophisticated business person should be looking for a long-term customer relationship.
When a customer, patient or client buys from you once, it is far more likely that they will buy again. If they have bought twice, it is even more likely that they will buy a third time and so on. Make sure that you can handle the business before filling up your stores with customers that you don’t have the capacity or willingness to service.
NOTE: I originally wrote this four years ago. I didn’t publish it because of my relationship with one of the executives. The business closed all of their stores last year. In fairness to the executive, he did eventually return my call, although it took several weeks. He shipped me a car charger and a wall charger for free.
Joshua Tukel is a list-building and marketing expert, author and speaker with over 20 years of business and marketing experience. He is Managing Member of DMJ Marketing, LLC in Royal Oak, MI. Visit
DMJ.me
where you can find many other customer creation ideas and subscribe to his blog.
Article Source:
eArticlesOnline.com
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