Want to know a secret?

/covers mouth with hand and leans in towards your ear

The shopper is (usually) always right.

It has been my experience that (for the most part) people don’t just start hating you. You have to incite them; make them feel betrayed or, even worse, confused. There has to be a moment of distrust where one of our shoppers sits up and realizes:

“Oh my god! This company is trying to pull a fast one on me; just like all those TV shows, newspaper reports and Carl Monday I-team investigations have been telling me they would.  I’m sure this company is like all the others; with their big fat cat executives and money grubbing employees, they’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I bet they’re at work right now in their over-air-conditioned, mahogany offices right now laughing at how they duped me.”

I’ve made the comment before that as marketers we are not only trying to change the misconceptions about our own brands, but trying to overcome the 1,000 years of shoppers being: telemarketed, snake-oil sold, put on hold and flat out lied to by self-proclaimed marketers and salespeople. This is important fodder when it comes to the shopper’s “well, I’m always right” entitlement. We’re paying for the countless mistakes (and subsequent lack of responsibility) those who came before us left behind.

So over the weekend, when I received the following customer complaint via Save-A-Lot.com I wasn’t completely surprised (sic’d unless otherwise noted):

Your internet coupon program absolutely sucks – you’re not Fort Knox for crissakes and I’m not trying to rob you.  It is most assuredly not shopper friendly.  I like what you’re trying to do, but, you’re methods are too, “Top Secret.”  I’d say fire and hire; solve problems, not create them.  The jokers who created this mess will probably be the ones who will read this – so maybe there’s a  future for you in the Ugandan army??????????????

Can’t you hear it in the tonality? They’re trying to take advantage of me, I know they’re out to get me. There’s a terrible amount of distrust here (I love the “Top Secret” and Ugandan army comments, perfect visual for the point I’m trying to make) and the shopper’s adamant about it.

He/She (for the sake of anonymity) is right.  We had made a slight change to our coupon program over the weekend, and it required entering a small amount of personal data (purely identifiable) in exchange for a $5 offer.  This is done for two reasons: 1.) We can prevent multiple entries per household using address normalization (a protection that allows us to run programs like this and benefit the shopper) and 2.) The data is stored in our consumer database for future use and tracking.

It was a quick and unannounced change that a frequent visitor to our site would be “offended” by, as it would interrupt their traditional browsing habits.  It wasn’t meant to be malicious; simply an update of content, a new program for our shoppers to take advantage of and for us to test with new placement.  The reality is that if he/she had waited a week the traditional coupon program would return and the shopper would have never been distraught by the new content.  I can’t blame the shopper; he/she had set a level of expectation and we did not meet his/her expectation. Consistency and ease are of the utmost necessity when communicating online.

So, naturally I got pissed had to respond.

He/she called me out directly, in saying that the folks who created this mess would probably be the same ones reading and responding to his/her claim. (Got me there.) The fact that he/she thought that we made this change as some malicious ploy made my blood boil (slightly); utilizing my skills to the “Ugandan Army”…pssh (?). I thought how I’d like to send back a snarky email and put the shopper in his/her place with my cadre of information armed with the full metal jacket of truth bombs.

But, I didn’t. I couldn’t.

First, I can’t let some anonymous missile get to me like that (I’ve been in this game long enough to know that inciting a person/troll/commenter just leads to more headache and outcry). I know it’s best to present the facts, not play into their game, keep calm and carry on.  The truly great thing is that there are so many people doing this part so poorly that we look like all-stars for taking 15-seconds to respond, correctly:

Hi (First Name),

Currently the only offer we have running is the $5 off $25 purchases for the various referrals that you found by clicking on the “Printable Coupons” tab.

We’ll have the new coupons available around the first of July…I’d ask that you check back then.  If I can be of any other assistance, don’t hesitate to drop me a line directly…

Thanks!
Matt

I didn’t address the straw man. I didn’t talk to his allegory (I wanted to). I just needed to give him exactly what he needed to re-earn his trust. (Oh, and I also called him by his first name, humanized the conversation and dropped an exclamation point in there…We are NOT bill collectors, stop creating a dialogue like you’re a credit card company! [unless, of course, you are a credit card company]).

And the fruit of my 15-second intervention:

Matt,

Thanks for your courteous reply to my frustrated but rude note re. coupons; I really should have realized that there are more productive ways to use my time than rooting around for coupons.  Save-A-Lot is really a positive, well-run outfit.

Best regards,
(Name)

At the end of the day our shoppers are inherently good people. Most people are. Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that open, level-headed conversation is the best way to “humanize” a brick and mortar store -OR- confusing website -OR- call center.

We get these complaints, notes, passive-aggressive IMs 1000s of times a day. Do we really take the time to remember there’s a person attached to a voice at the other end of the line? And for as little as we do that, try and put yourself in our shoppers’ shoes; I think you’ll find that their response is all the more understandable.

Photo courtesy of Night Owl City’s Photostream on Flickr

Advertisement