How About Something You Don’t Need Or Want?

My birthday was just a few weeks back. I don’t make a big deal of my birthday – in fact, I don’t make a big deal of anybody’s birthday unless I’m reminded that it really matters to that person. But it’s heartwarming to get cards and e-mail or text messages from people I know. As an ongoing student of marketing and networking, I find it instructive to get messages from people who only know me as a prospect or new networking contact. And I find it intriguing to get messages from businesses where I am a customer, especially from a business that goes all-out to acknowledge birthdays but fails to deliver in their stores.

My cell phone service provider is a sub-contractor for one of the big companies with national reach. I first got a cell phone almost twenty years ago. I had to carry a heavy lead-acid battery in a shoulder bag to make it truly portable. That’s how long ago I started as a customer with this company, and that may be part of why I haven’t chosen to switch yet. Until recently, even if they didn’t offer everything I wanted, they had what I needed and usually provided good service.

Last summer I had to replace my phone, which slowly died during my long road trip to North Carolina and Virginia. I chose a basic phone that wouldn’t cost much. It fit my budget, and it fit in the leather carrying case I used for the previous phone. There wasn’t a car charger in the store for the phone, but they said they could ship one to my house and I wouldn’t have to pay shipping fees.

The charger arrived in a few days, but so did a shipping charge on my next bill. I had to call in, which takes time because they have a wait of several minutes these days for customer service. They had to put me on hold, check some things, ask some questions, and then get back to me before removing the charge. Annoying, but finished.

I only occasionally use my cell phone for conversations while driving so it was a few weeks before I realized the headset for my former phone didn’t fit the connection on the new phone. When I was nearby, I stopped in one of the provider’s stores to buy a new headset. They didn’t have any. They said they hadn’t gotten all the accessories for that phone yet because it was new. Oddly, when I bought it the guy told me it was a good price because it was a model that had been around for a while and a newer, more expensive version would be coming out soon.

A couple of months later my phone started this kamikaze act. I would be walking along and it would leap out of the leather case onto the floor. When I noticed the case was upright but the phone was on the floor, I started realizing something was fishy. Occasionally it took the case to the ground with it. So when I was near one of the stores, I went in to buy a new case. Actually, I planned to buy one just like I had, because it was the third one of the same model I have used for five years or more. But they didn’t have any more.

In fact, they didn’t have a single case in the store that would accommodate my phone. The one that came closest had a flap that snapped in place. That would have prevented kamikaze phone dives, but it would have made it really hard to answer a call before the phone went to voice mail. During that visit, I looked around the store at other phones while I was waiting for a salesperson. I noticed fewer phones available, lots of empty display space, and a limited number of accessories.

On a whim, because I was driving back from a meeting that took me by another one of their locations, I went in a couple of months later to see if that store had the things I needed. It looked sparse, too. They said my phone was too new for them to have accessories like a headset that would work with it. This was over five months after I was told it was an older model. They had no cases that would fit it, either.

A few weeks later I received an e-mail from the company wishing me a happy birthday. It came with a discount coupon to use in the store. If only they had something I needed! It also came with a link to a video the office staff made for birthdays. It had the look of something produced by a local professional made with an amateur feel. It was scripted well and edited well, but shot with a handheld camera. Office staff were planning a party and making quips about each other, as well as slightly sarcastic comments about birthdays. All in all it was pretty well done and entertaining.

But I realized it took a lot of time, attention, effort, coordination, and probably money to produce the video as part of their birthday promotional program. Someone was thinking really hard about how to grab their customers’ attention to get them to come in and buy some more stuff. It was crafted to say, “We’re thinking about you and want to acknowledge you and give you a gift on your birthday.”

Unfortunately, no one in the company has been thinking about making the customer’s experience in the store better. They haven’t realized it’s a lot easier to sell to someone standing in your place of business who wants to buy something. They were focusing on encouraging people to go out of their way to think of something they need and then come in, or come in and look around.

If they had provided what I needed, I would have bought those items the first time I went looking for them. And I would have considered using the free merchandise coupon for something I had seen and thought about but not really needed. Instead, I just laughed at the foolishness of it all.

Their creative way of inviting me back to the store painted a story that was a fantasy. The experiences I have had in their stores in the past few months tell the real story. It’s akin to sending out expensive invitations describing an elaborate event, but using flimsy folding tables and chairs and serving party mix and canned juice. The invitation sets an expectation and the event completely disappoints. The story told by the invitation is seen as deceitful. And that’s the kind of story no business should ever tell.

Find Your Mission – Write Your Story – Tell The World

Steve Coxsey