The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

Meet Scary Monkey (cadged from the collection of Ale Paiva over at the Stock Xchange). I’ve chosen Scary Monkey to be my mascot for all things craptacular in the business and marketing world. When you see Scary Monkey, you know someone has stepped in it. Let’s see who’s leaving stinky footprints today, shall we?

The Large Print Giveth, and the Small Print Taketh Away

The other day, I won one of those business card drawings at a local Chamber of Commerce event. Along with a nice package of handmade boutique soaps, I received a certificate from Mountain View Tire and Service here in Asheville for a free oil change. Sweet! As you can imagine, I was very excited to win this particular prize and since it was just about time for an oil change on my truck anyway, it was doubly pleasant.

BTW, this is a great way to get new customers. After all, many of you offer services and products that create repeat sales by their very nature and this is an easy, cheap way of entering new markets and getting a larger memeshare of the market. In this case, oil changes have to be done regularly and this brief explosion of joy on my part could have translated into a long-term customer relationship assuming they didn’t completely screw it up, which, since an oil change is a dead simple procedure, would have been very unlikely.

But that’s not going to happen now because, as they say, “The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.” Turns out that what I “won” wasn’t a free oil change certificate at all, but merely a discount coupon. In teeny-tiny print that’s barely visible in the shadow of the large-font exhortations of the fine “OIL, LUBE & FILTER WITH 14 POINT INSPECTION” that I didn’t really win is a note that says: ” With purchase of 4 select Goodyear tires.”

Uh, excuse me? A new set of tires is an expensive proposition, and one that is only considered when it’s actually time for new tires, not at random intervals and certainly not just to get a free oil change. An oil change with purchase of new tires is a nice premium - for people who are actually looking to buy tires. But it’s hardly a prize for someone who isn’t.

ROI and Customer Retention

Now, as anyone who’s been in business for more than a few minutes knows, unless you are running a monopoly (and probably even then) the cost of acquiring a new customer (making that first sale to the unsure, the wary and the potential one-night-stander) is far, far higher in terms of effort and actual expenses than the cost of selling to an existing customer (who, if they’re still a customer after that first sale, is already convinced that type of product or services you sell are worth throwing money at and has already established a habit of throwing that money at you to get them). So getting clients is expensive and keeping old ones is cheap and lucrative, since the “selling” has already been done.

This prize, had it been an actual prize and not a crappy coupon, could have created a long-term customer out of me for the price of a basic service (which has a very low cost to the provider and a high markup to the customer, says she who has taken two years of auto maintenance and knows exactly what goes into this service, money- and otherwise). After all, it’s not like I’ll never be needing another oil change again. Or some other related service. Or even tires, for that matter. (Although I buy Cooper, not Goodyear. Yes that’s a plug. They’re great tires.).

But now, instead of a satisfied customer with the rosy, happy association to this company of someone who’s been given something they needed for free, they have a pissed off blogger with an internet connection and a burning desire (akin to the feeling you get from an STD) never to go anywhere near them in the future and to make sure no one else does either. (Just in case you think I’m just ranting over a lost oil change, I’m not. Hubs and I aren’t rolling in dough, but we do okay. I can afford the oil change. It’s the whole “treating the customer like an eternally fleecy sheep to be shorn” bit that rankles.)

Good work, Mountain View Tire and Service of Asheville (yes, I am Google-baiting, why do you ask)! You’ve managed to turn what could have been a great promotional idea into a massively negative opinion that is far out of proportion to the actual damage done, because not only do I not have a free oil change that I thought I had, I also feel jerked around and treated like some sort of mentally deficient idiot who would say, “Sure, I’ll buy a set of expensive tires I don’t need, because otherwise I’ll lose this here free oil change, worth less than $50.00.”

I feel disrespected, insulted, ripped off (even though I bought nothing, I “had” something that was then taken away) and angry. All that for the price of an oil change.

Don’t Be a Selfish Bastard

The moral of the story is, don’t be a selfish bastard if you want to make new customers. Coupons are all well and good, and premiums have their place. But if you’re handing out prizes, freebies, giveaways, samples, etc., don’t tie them down with craptacular fine print. Generosity is its own reward and Scrooging your customers because you’re a scarcity-minded loser is a negative-sum way to do business.

Asheville, customer, customer acquisition, customer retention, freebie, give away, giveaway, marketing, Mountain View Tire and Service, prize, promotion, sales, word of mouth

Tags: Bad Monkey! Business and Marketing Craptacularity, Business //