Tag Archives: blunder

Business Blunders

Image Is Everything: Faces of Coal Uses iStockPhoto… Whoops!

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I was watching Jon Stewart last night and he mentioned a story about the supposedly grassroots organization from the coal industry that I just had to blog about.

One of the things I have always preached to our clients, whether they are big or small, is that the “image” they portray on their website or social network is very important. And, in addition, once it’s out there in cyberspace, you can’t pull it back.

This is actually a more important theory to take to heart than ever because one wrong Tweet could land you in seriously hot water.

The new campaign for the coal industry is located at http://facesofcoal.org/.

On their homepage (which has been edited since this story came to light) there are a bunch of big images that flash across the screen to show you the FACES that coal helps. Their entire campaign is based around this idea of “FACES”. I guess this is their way of connecting coal to the people in our everyday lives.

Apparently the coal industry couldn’t find any REAL faces to support their cause because all of the images they are showing on their website are from iStockPhoto.

Now, let me be clear, I have no problem with iStockPhoto or stock photography in general. I think it’s highly practical and is a resource that should definitely be used.

But, if you’re running a campaign where the focus is on the FACES of people who are supporting your cause, then maybe… just maybe… buying photos online for a couple of dollars is NOT the right way to go.

Faces of Coal iStockPhoto Example 1

Faces of Coal iStockPhoto Example 2

Credit goes to the Appalachian Voices blog who, based on my research, were the first ones to break this story. You can find more of the examples here.

Business Blunders, Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Future Shop’s Email Marketing Blunder

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Last week Future Shop, one of Canada’s biggest electronics retailers, launched a large in-house email promotion and made just about the biggest blunder you could make. Despite the fact that Future Shop made a huge rookie mistake (one of the things we coach all our email marketing clients about), I must give them kudos on a very interesting concept.

The promotion was “Future Shop 10 Days of Amazing Deals”. The idea is that the customer (in this case me) is supposed to check the same email every day and it will automatically update to show the new deals of the day. I’ll be the first to admit this does sound cool and is an interesting promotional idea. From a technical standpoint it’s actually pretty basic since they just change the image on their server that is being downloaded, but to the average end-user it’s entirely ‘different’ and ‘neat’. I suspect the marketing staff at Future Shop are relying on people flagging the message in their inbox and coming back to it. I sort of question whether that is a good strategy, but that is a question for another day.

The big blunder, that in my opinion ruined an otherwise cool idea, was the fact that when the email first landed in my inbox on “Deal Day 1”, none of the links worked. No matter what link I clicked on in the email, it only led me to a ‘page not found’ error. How on earth do you launch a campaign like this with that kind of problem? I mean, this not only looks so bad to each and every recipient (and I’ve got to imagine that’s a ton!), but it must kill their conversion ratio.

I can only imagine the look on the marketing manager’s face when he got the slick new promotional email in his inbox and found out it didn’t actually connect to the Future Shop website.

[I should mention that I had several people check the links from various locations to make sure it wasn’t just me that got unlucky with broken links.]

Like we always tell our customers, if the goal of your email is to drive traffic to your website, then a good rule of thumb is to make sure the link you’re putting in front of people actually works.

Future Shop: 10 Days of Amazing Deals

For every “deal day” since day 1, Future Shop did get things sorted out and the links have been working. But, the fact that on day 1 the link reading “If you are having problems viewing this email, please try the web edition” didn’t work…well, that’s a big time blunder.

Business Blunders

Who Wants Cold Pizza? Blunder By “Pizza Pizza”

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As always, I firmly believe you can learn a lot of good ways to improve your business by studying where other companies seemingly fall dramatically short. It doesn’t matter if that company is in the same industry as you because there is always a more “general lesson” that we can walk away with. By looking at these mistakes it can help you “reframe” or see something you’re doing in a different light and that is a key goal!

Pizza Pizza (http://www.pizzapizza.ca/) is celebrating their 40th anniversary and is Toronto, Ontario’s #1 pizza chain. Their marketing is generally very effective as most people know their ‘phone number jingle’ (…even when drunk, my friends can order pizza…that’s brand loyalty you can’t even measure!!). But, their customer service policies seem a bit questionable.

Here was the scenario that happened:
– We ordered 3 pizzas from Pizza Pizza.
– Each one was completely different and was chosen off their pre-built pizza menu with little to no modifications.

  • The Pizza’s were delivered around 40 minutes later. 
  • Only 2 out of 3 were proper. The other one was a totally different pizza, not even close to what we ordered.At this point it’s important to realize that mistakes do happen. I’m not happy about it, and my friend who had ordered that pizza wasn’t too happy either. But, I can understand they process a lot of orders and while it’s not good, I can see how this could occur.

Of course, the important thing now is that it’s rectified. (Customer Service 101…)

I called Pizza Pizza and selected from their oh-so-friendly-and-always-annoying-like-every-other-auto-attendant that I needed customer service. They kept me on hold for around 10 minutes. [Note to Pizza Pizza: Keeping customers that are potentially angry on hold listening to lame music doesn’t help diffuse the situation, it usually makes it worse!)

When I finally spoke to someone they said their policy is to deliver the correct pizza and let you keep the wrong pizza, but it has to be done right away.

Now, here’s my problem with having to do this right away, which I explained to the customer service rep:

  • Should we let the other two pizza’s get cold while we wait for the other person’s pizza?
  • Should we make this person watch us eat (and savor) our pizza while he waits?(Keep in mind, we’re looking at another 40 minutes of waiting)

After explaining the predicament with the scenario they caused by accident, I said that the only thing we can really do is have my friend eat the wrong pizza. But, because they made a mistake, instead of delivering the pizza right away, they should deliver it the next time I order. After all, in either case they are making a new pizza and sending out someone to deliver it. Who cares if it’s now or later? And, if you force me to do it now, which of the above options should I choose?

I also want to say at this point that since I frequently order pizza, I know that almost all the other restaurants would have had no problem tacking on a free pizza to my next order if they made a mistake.

Pizza Pizza, however, said that is their policy. Final. No ifs, ands, or butts.

What the restaurant chain failed to realize is that the solution they provide to the customer is the dining experience. You can’t recover from that mistake if you get it wrong the first time. (If I eat out and the waiter spills coffee on me…no retakes either!) By not having a responsive and reasonable customer service policy, you extend this negative experience because of the above predicament.

There are a lot of competitors out there and Pizza Pizza’s key to success is loyalty to their brand. I know my friend wouldn’t order from them with so many other options. How many other people are going to start saying the same thing after a negative experience?

I don’t blame the phone rep because I know she really is just following a policy. But, to the folks at Pizza Pizza who created this wonderful policy and the ones who approved it… this is a huge customer service blunder! Seriously, what were you thinking? And, don’t say people would abuse the system because I understand that would be a concern, but don’t put it ahead of good customer service?

Just to end the tale…. Pizza Pizza called 45 minutes later and said they forgot to send the pizza. 40 minutes after that, the pizza got there.