Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

A tale of two customer services

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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Last week, I had the best and worst customer service experiences of recent memory. The difference between the two companies? One understood the lifetime value of a customer, and the other either didn’t get it or didn’t care.

The best? About two years ago I purchased the DVD set of the 6th season of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For various reasons, I never actually watched the DVDs, but finally last week I wanted to watch a specific episode while I jogged on the treadmill. Unfortunately, that was the disc in the box that was defective.

I took a chance and sent a comment to Amazon customer service:

“I realize that this is quite an old order, but I just got around to watching these and at least one of the disks is defective. I have tried it in two DVD players and the copyright warnings come up but the disk contents do not. I have checked one other CD in the set and it is fine. Is it possible to get this replaced somehow — even just the defective disk….or disks as I will check them all later today.”

Within ONE HOUR I got this reply from Amazon:

“Thanks for contacting us at Amazon.com. 

I am sorry to hear about the problem you experienced with your shipment.  I have placed a new order for the item "Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Complete Sixth Season."  There is no charge for this replacement. 

Here are the details of the new order:

Order Number           : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   
Shipping Speed         : Two-Day Delivery
Estimated Delivery Date: October 19, 2005

We will send you a postage-paid return merchandise label so you may return the item[s] you received.  It should arrive via standard U.S.
mail within 1-2 weeks.  Please wrap the package securely, attach the label to the package, and drop it off at any Post Office.”

And today (Tuesday October 18, 2005) I received the replacement DVD set.

That’s customer service.

Did the fact that I spend a fair amount of money with Amazon every year factor into the decision to give me a $40 product for free? Probably. And to some degree, that’s the point. Understand the potential lifetime value of your customer and make sure you maximize their loyalty. I buy a lot of products, including CDs and DVDs, from Amazon and will continue to do so. I seriously doubt that a chain store would have accepted a return from two years ago, and they certainly would have wanted the receipt.

Amazon sent me the disks right away.

Now, here’s the worst of customer service.

Recently I decided I wanted to upgrade my cell phone to a BlackBerry. Partly because reception on my phone was awful, but mostly because my clients tend to communicate with me through email more than by phone. Having easy access to email wherever I am has become something of a necessity.

So my husband and I went to the Cingular store to take care of the change last Friday. Unfortunately, although we’ve been Cingular customers for YEARS, our most recent plan (a family plan that we share) was contracted last October. And according to the “RULES” that meant that I could not upgrade my phone; I would have to pay full retail if I wanted a BlackBerry. A difference of about $250. If I was a brand new Cingular customer I could get the BlackBerry for about $250. As a longtime Cingular customer (since about 1994) ineligible for upgrade, I would have to pay $500.

Plus of course the monthly plan. Which would be about double…. $40-50 for cell service and an additional $40 for the data services necessary for the BlackBerry. On a monthly basis, once I upgraded to the Blackberry, I would be spending TWICE what I was before. And my husband would have a cell plan as well.

But the rules are the rules…. I could upgrade at full retail or pay the cancellation fee and start anew.

So… I am starting anew. With my new Verizon BlackBerry.

A word of advice to the Cingular sales prevention team: don’t forget the lifetime value of the customer.

The cancellation fee was worth it.

Catching up October 05

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Blogging was light to the point of ZERO this week because I was "on the road again" with limited time and spotty Internet access.

Midweek, I attended the Annual Meeting of the Association of the US Army in Washington DC. My client Spec.-Ops. Brand had a small booth in the exhibit, and it was a good opportunity to learn more about the military market as well as meet with the client. After 2 days there, I went to Somerset NJ for the Morris and Essex Kennel Club dog show on Thursday and then home Thursday night.

I’m finally more or less caught up on work, and will resume or normal marketing program next week.

Today, I just want to share something that really struck me at the AUSA show.

The attendees at the AUSA show are primarily members of the US Army of all ranks, ages and experience — Specialists and USMA Cadets to Major Generals and Command Sergeants Major. Just like any other association meeting, the event is a combination of networking, education, trade show and socializing.

While walking around the exhibits, and looking at the mix of attendees, I thought back to my childhood when my father (a career Army officer) was stationed at the US Military Academy (West Point).

At the age of eight, I thought the cadets (at 19 and 20) were all grown up. What a difference 30 plus years makes. This week, when I saw young men and women of a similar age — cadets, NCOs and Lieutenants — all I could think was how young they were, barely out of childhood.   

You read the papers, and it talks about these 20-year old kids, but most of us don’t see them on a regular basis. The reality is that the active duty Army is an Army of youth. Soldiers not much older than me are nearly through with their careers, preparing for retirement (and usually a second career in the private sector).

It may be trite, but it is also true: it is someone’s son or daughter, niece or nephew over in Iraq and Afghanistan. They may be well-trained, efficient soldiers, willing to do their duty for their country. But they are also kids far from home. Whatever you think of this war, remember that , and maybe do something nice for a serviceman or woman in the coming holiday season.

Big damn auction, big damn movie

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I realized yesterday that if you weren’t interested in charity auctions or Joss Whedon’s Serenity, there wasn’t much on the Roadmap for you this week.

And there still isn’t… although I promise to move onto other topics soon. Maybe next week.

The HP Charity Auction ended last night, and by all accounts a success. The auction itself raised a little less than $10,000, and with HP’s matching funds, each charity (DATA and the American Red Cross) got more than $9,000. HP will be publishing a webpage with all the details, and when I get the link, I’ll post it.

Everyone involved learned a lot in the process, from both our mistakes and the things that went well. One thing that is absolutely critical is to allow enough time for viral marketing to work. It takes time for messages to spread into an audience of any size, even if you do billboards and primetime TV ads. You need even more time for a grassroots message. The good news, though, is once it takes hold, it *does* snowball. Our example without a doubt is how fast the word spread in Elijah Wood’s fanbase about the auction.

And speaking of grassroots marketing …. the Big Damn Movie is in general release today. I’m going tonight, more on it tomorrow, but I promise, no spoilers.

And then maybe I’ll write about something else 🙂

Serenity and grassroots marketing

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About a week or so ago, I posted about the Joss Whedon movie Serenity as an example of how customers can effect change, when they care enough AND somebody is actually listening. The post also was my submission to this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists.

As a fan of Firefly, I have been impatiently waiting for the film that continues the story just like any other fan. And as a marketer, I have been observing the grassroots and viral marketing efforts with great interest over the past year. I’ve even done my share of fan conversions. For the uninitiated, that’s when you loan your Firefly DVDs to a “virgin.”

Shortly after I wrote my post, as we got ever closer to this Friday’s general US release, the media – both mainstream and blogosphere – effectively exploded. The LA premiere generated a great deal of press, as did the rounds of interviews director Whedon and the cast are doing to promote the movie. I won’t list it all here, but you can find most of the coverage on the site Whedonesque.

Not surprisingly, given the grassroots and viral campaigns already in play, the studio (Universal) decided to approach bloggers directly. Among the bloggers they contacted with their offer for a free advance screening provided they agreed to blog about the movie, good or bad, was the Instapundit . Definitely the way to spread the word fast..   

In fact, three marketing blogs that I read on a fairly regular basis wrote about the offer, each with a slightly different take and what it means longer term. I’ve commented at all three, and won’t rehash all the discussion here, other than to recommend you read the posts, and all the comments.

As one of the commenters on the gapingvoid post pointed out, planned or merely unintended consequence, the free advanced screenings reached well beyond the fanbase.

The best post about the whole thing however was from a blog I hadn’t read before, New Persuasion   (again I tip my hat to Whedonesque for the link). The author of the post Nellie Lide actually was “confirmed” for one of the blogger screenings but chose not to go because she didn’t like the way the publicity firm handled the whole thing. Reading some of the language they used in their emails, I can definitely see why bloggers might be put off by it (notably too much use of the word MUST). And perhaps the PR firm didn’t handle it as well as they could have.

But I still stand by my opinion that no one was forced to do anything. It was a choice whether to accept the terms of the offer: get into a free advance screening of a much-anticipated movie in exchange for blogging about it. Or not.

Yes, the language the PR firm used was a bit strong and controlling. But, if you didn’t like the terms, don’t accept. Nellie Lide didn’t accept. Others did. (Although I do imagine it was easier to resist if you’d already seen the film than if you hadn’t.)

We will make mistakes … all of us … as we try to integrate new media into existing models. It is inevitable. But I’d rather try something new and perhaps make a mistake than never be willing to try. For that alone, I commend the team behind the blogger screenings –they tried something new. And hopefully, they learned from whatever mistakes they made. As I hope to when I make mine.

By Friday, this will all be moot anyway, as Serenity will be in general release. According to Whedonesque this morning, tickets are now available on movietickets.com.

See you at the movies. And "aim to misbehave."