Has it ever happened to you that you saw a company’s advertisement about an offer or a new marketing message or a promise of a certain experience etc. and you went out of the way to make use of it. And then for some reason it was not available, or you did not get what was promised? As a result you went from being completely indifferent to the company, to developing a bit of aversion to it or in the worst case even becoming bitter and completely opposed to the company and its products. Welcome to the world of scary marketing managers-with brilliant insights, great plans and bad execution.
While I don’t have any grand theories on how this could be avoided, I recently came across an instance of failed execution and formulated some ideas on how it could have been different.
First on is at Chase bank, now Chase started this whole “Chase picks up your tab” marketing message that basically says that when you use your debit card (that you “enroll” in this plan) to make a purchase, Chase will pick up the tab for you once a year on a random transaction. Now, I like those odds, maybe they will pick up a big transaction and give me a hundred dollars back-I can take that gamble. To their credit, they had complete consistency in marketing this message with emails, on their website and even in their branches with huge placards explaining the scheme and benefits-so far, the perfect marketing plan ever. And I finally ask the clerk behind the counter to enroll me in the scheme and he blinks! He looks around helplessly and finally says-“You are going to have to come back some other time to do that-all our officers are busy now”. I still persisted, asking another lady who seemed a little more knowledgeable, she in fact went ahead and explained all the benefits of the enrolling in the plan and could she enroll my card? No, all the officers were talking with other customers and she herself could not do it.
Now, there was a classic moment of truth…here I was taking time out of a busy afternoon to do exactly what Chase wanted me to do-and these two employees can’t just make it happen. I would have spent at least a thousand dollars on that card the same month on a flight ticket (but I ended up using another card), I have even turned a bit opposed to using the debit card anymore (“if I can’t get the offer why should I bother using it?”)
It would be naïve to assume that somehow those two employees were at fault. They probably weren’t empowered to do it. Or they did not have the appropriate training on how to do it. Or rather, Chase did not have a mechanism to help me do it on my own so that those employees are not burdened and I am happy as well with an hour saved on that afternoon.
What could Chase have done better? Quite a few things actually…
- Multiple Channels: Instead of forcing customers to show up at a branch to sign-up it could have been online and if they absolutely needed to have a conversation with me, maybe a follow-up phone call.
- Call to Action: In all their messages, they could have emphasized a simple method to enroll my card on my own instead of just saying “Enroll today”
- Training: When a program is important enough to throw up banners all around the branch, every employee should be informed enough at least to talk intelligently about it.
- Follow-up: At the least, they could have had a simple operating procedure of getting the customer’s phone number and an appropriate time to call them back (and of course call the customer back at that time).
That would be flawless execution, otherwise it will just be another marketing exercise in futility-a lot of dollars wasted on grandiose gimmicks and advertisements with no return; often generating a lot of ill-will as a result.
