-
Are Daily Deals and Special Offers Really Good for Business?
I’m a big fan of taking advantage of special offers and promotions, but recently a few bad experiences have left me thinking that I would prefer to pay full price and receive the high level of service that I expected, rather than the bad service that I got.
A year or so ago I was a little bit addicted to finding all the services I needed via Daily Deal type emails. That was until I booked a hair cut at a hairdresser who turned out to not exist, and took up a carpet cleaning offer that cost twice as much as the deal to actually get the area of carpets cleaned that needed cleaning.
Due to these experiences and the time I was spending contemplating which deals to take, I took drastic action and unsubscribed from all deal alerts.
However I am still a big fan of the Entertainment Book. It has a great mix of offers and helps me select new places to eat and drink… and then there was that afternoon I happily spent cross checking to find Melbourne restaurants that are in both the Entertainment Book and the Good Food Guide.
But I digress… back to the subject!
The Entertainment Book includes a Gold Card that can be used “to enjoy rewards” at selected “Fine and Contemporary Dining Restaurants”. My partner and I have used it twice now at restaurants that we had high hopes for, and both times we went home incredibly disappointed.
Disappointed because the food and drinks didn’t meet our expectations.
Disappointed because the service was bad. Bad to the point where I complained.
And then we were disappointed because no one was interested in responding to our complaints. There was narry an apology nor an offer of a free dessert to make us feel better.
Surely the point of the Entertainment Book is to let new customers experience what you have to offer and give them such a good experience that they will come back in the future. And if their experience isn’t good, wouldn’t it be better for business to listen to their feedback, appreciate it and use it constructively?
Granted this was only two bad experiences but we have only used the Gold Card twice. Maybe we’ll be third time lucky.
But I started wondering, was the service always bad? Or, have special deals and promotions so successfully filled seats in these restaurants that the service has declined and the management hasn’t noticed?
I’ve also heard that this is true for some service providers who’ve participated in daily deals. The deals were so successful that employees who previously had the time and energy to give thorough and professional service to their clients are now stressed and exhausted by having to service the extra through put.
So stressed and exhausted that they can’t provide the level of service needed to motivate the client to return for future visits. Which was the whole point of the promotion in the first place.
The points mentioned above are purely based on my personal experience so it could be that I am the special deals jinx, or maybe my bad experiences are just a co-incidence.
I thought I’d find out by writing this article.
Have your experiences with special deals and marketing promotions been good or bad? Please let me know in the comments below.
Note – I’m referring to Business to Consumer daily deal type offers, rather than Business to Business lead generation marketing type offers.
Melinda
Melinda, generally known as Mel, is half of the Grassroots team. She is a Google Qualified Advertising Professional and a SEO Web Copywriter. Mel's aim is to make the web world a better place.
If you like it, please share it!
Join in! There's already been 10 comments
Post a comment
Recent Posts
-
Enter Code passion099 for 25% discount on your first purchase
Totally agree with you – I think deal coupons etc are a massive rip-off most of the time. And I’d say they definitely affect the customer experience in the ways you mention.
Do they have something like Yelp (www.yelp.com) working and popular back home yet? It’s not perfect (there are allegations that Yelp selectively publish reviews depending on how much the company butters them up, etc), but it makes businesses work hard to get good reviews from everyday customers.
Tess
Hey Tess, I just Googled after reading your comment and it looks like Yelp launched here a few months ago but I haven’t used it yet or come across it other than that search. I’m in favour of anything that improves the quality of service we receive
I agree with you Mel. My last purchase was for a meal with a restaurant which had gone out of business – I did get a credit, though. But now the deal company doesn’t seem to have much on offer. Unless I want some beauty treatment to waste my money on. When they first started, the value was significant. Now it is anybody wanting to get a quick buck from nothing much. Poor products – about the value you pay, rather than their quote. Prices heavily inflated to look like a great saving. I am looking for a specific “thing” and when it comes through, I will be unsubscribing from the sites.
Hi Sue, thanks for your comment. I think you hit the nail on the head by saying it’s “about the value you pay, rather than the quote” and unfortunately that means that the standard of service is lower than we expect.
Cheers
Mel
AGREE. AGREE. AGREE!! I’ve had lots of luck using the entertainment book vouchers but not great using the Gold Card restaurants! Happy to support this book as its a fundraiser for various places. Daily deals however = mixed bag. I bought an accommodation voucher which seems impossible to get a booking for. But I bought a storage voucher and ended up getting 4 months free storage and the manager is amazingly helpful! But my daughters bought discount hair vouchers. First trip was amazing. The second one not so good. Appointment was for 10am. She arrived at 9.50am to be told her appointment was at 9am and now she would forfeit her voucher! She’s 14 so called me in tears and I rang the salon to plead her case. The woman was a cow and I ended up hanging up on her!! They would have had a customer for life after the first visit but cancelled that out with the second effort!! I’m very wary these days and have I subscribed to all offer emails.
Hi Tracey, thanks for your comment. Places like the hair dresser that you mentioned are crazy really; I don’t think they realise how bad it is for their business to create the negative impression that they did with you, when it would have been so easy to create a great impression.
Enjoy your travels – I just had a stooge around your website – sounds fantastic!
It’s an interesting topic… Quite simply, I think discounts – and in particular daily deals – are a viable marketing channel IF planned for properly…
Planning is the key, and where I’d guess 98% of the businesses utilising it fail. Frankly, it’s not just DD marketing either – look at social media and the number of neglected business pages.
You are correct though, consumers are being burned here. They ARE getting crappy service, there’s too many horror stories going around. My wife herself had a horror story at a hair salon.
Every now and then though, you find the gems. The businesses who did plan for it, and are capitalising on the extra customers.
Frankly I blame the DD websites for all the issues with the model. It’s run by salesmen who push businesses into offering deals they can’t service. Too cheap, too much volume, lack of guidance on how to prepare for it.
The DD bubble has popped though. Expect to see massive consolidation. Cudo (I think it was) are even trying to sell.
Money has been made and so the crooks out for a quick buck are leaving. Hopefully what we’re left with is a sustainable model that benefits businesses and consumers!
Cheers Chris for your comment. It will definitely be interesting to see how the daily deals companies change and merge in the next year or so.
Hi Melinda, I’ve never used Daily Deals … and now I know why! I’m sure there are some genuine bargains out there, but I couldn’t be bothered risking my time&money on something that mightn’t work out.
I’ve only had one experience with the Entertainment Book: a date in a fine dining restaurant. The experience at the restaurant was overall positive … I wish the same could be said about the date
Thanks for your post, Melinda. I trust your opinion on lots of things, and I’ll be adding this to my list!
Erin
Thanks for your comment Erin. Am glad that you had a good experience with the Entertainment Book… it’s interesting that the data wasn’t great, I wonder if that says something about the type of date you have with someone who uses a discount card… but that’s probably a whole different article!
Then that thought lead my thinking, as I am such an Entertainment Book addict, if I was dating I’d probably be using the vouchers at every opportuntity!
Cheers
Mel