Exceptional results.
Just Send It!
By: David Shepard
This article first appeared in Direct Magazine
Over the last couple of months I’ve been exposed to three situations that don’t make a lot of sense to me. In each case the marketer in question failed to close the loop, causing the customer, in this case me, to work harder than necessary to buy their product. I don’t get it. Maybe one or all of the three will read this article and explain their logic. I’ll be glad to print their response in this space.
Situation 1.
I wanted to by a top of the line lap top. Money was no object. I just wanted it, if for no other reason than to be the envy of my fellow frequent flyers when the dueling lap top games start at 10,000 feet above New York. In other words, I was not a hard sell. So, I went to their Web Site, learned all I needed to know about the product and searched for the “click here to order” icon. It wasn’t there. There, instead, was a listing of three or four mail order dealers I could call. I called them all. Some didn’t stock the model I wanted and tried to sell me something else. Finally I found one who expected to have stock the following week. So, I placed the order. Never heard from them again. Two weeks later I placed my order with another recommended dealer. The product came on time. Of course, it didn’t work right and so began a three month battle between me, the manufacture and the distributor, each explaining how they would love to help me, but it was really the other guy’s problem, and how of course the real culprit was Microsoft, and who could argue with that!
Now if the brand I was buying came from a small unheard of manufacture who couldn’t afford to maintain a direct distribution arm I could understand the need for this multi-channel arrangement, but trust me, I’d Bet My last dollar based on watching a lot of great TV commercials that this firm understands the economics of e-commerce.
Situation 2.
I was asked by the folks at CTAM, the cable tv marketing organization to give a talk at the start of their convention last December. So, I researched the hot cable marketing topics and fear Number One is the growing popularity of satellite delivered programming or direct TV. To offset this threat the cable companies are looking at providing Internet access to their cable subscribers, it’s 50 times faster than phone lines, and if you spend a lot of time on-line, you know how significant a product like this could be. But, to get this service you need some hardware, and the cable companies don’t want to finance this inventory, so they want their subscribers to buy the required hardware from a local electronics store, usually part of a large national chain, with whom they’ll make some arrangements for installation. The only problem is that these electronics stores are the very same ones selling satellite services. Is this any way to control a marketing opportunity, by sending your customers into a store where they are very likely to see a convincing argument for switching to your competition? Wouldn’t it be better to solve the financing problem and maintain at least some control over your customer’s competitive experience?
Situation 3.
We were looking for information about a particular category of product. We came across the Web site for one of the major brands in the category. We accessed the site. Great site. Found out everything we needed to know about the category and the brand. We wanted to buy the brand. Couldn’t do it. No direct sale mechanism. No, “click here to order” icon. Instead, we were asked to provide our zip code, we did, and up popped six retailers, with phone numbers and addresses. We called all six. Nearly all recommended competitive brands. How difficult would it have been for this company to provide direct delivery to those customers or prospects who want to do business with them but who don’t want to travel to a retail location, to pick up what they would rather have delivered, even if this means paying a delivery charge.
We all know that the mantra of differentiated, integrated, interactive, database driven, relationship marketing (DIIDDRM) for short (just kidding) or the New Direct Marketing as we prefer to call it is that you have to allow the customer to select the time and manner in which he or she chooses to do business with you, and when you fail to offer the customer an obvious alternative, like “click here to order” from your own Web site, don’t be surprised if that customer will choose to click elsewhere.
Incidentally, speaking of the New Direct Marketing, the Third Edition of our book of the same name will be published this Month by McGraw Hill and you can click on their Web Site or on Amazon.Com, and they will send it direct!