I admit it. I’m a bit irritated right now, so I may not be entirely objective in this post. 

Despite that, I think I have an example of a short-sighted focus on profits that comes at the expense of long-range marketing.

It’s a balance, I know, but we have got to stop looking as marketing as an expense that happens outside of the realm of the rest of the business.

Here’s the backstory in full. In brief, I purchased a back-up generator for my house for over $4000. At that price, I expected it to work as intended, namely come on as soon as the power went out.

It didnt.

The company responded fairly quickly, but I asked them to make a gesture acknowledging that I had been inconvenienced at the only moment when I expected their product to work.

I initially contacted them as follows:

I think (arguably expect) that the right thing to do is this scenario is to say, “we’re sorry for your troubles. Yes, your next 2 years of service are free.”

PS. Did I mention your tech is here now and he discovered that the unit wasn’t working due to an “over crank?”  Something with the way your previous tech aligned the valves.

Here’s what they wrote in response:

As you know and stated in your original e-mail, we responded very quickly when we found out your unit did not come during the outage earlier this month.  We were able to make the necessary adjustments to get your unit working for the balance of your outage.  Due to the length of this outage we pulled your 1st  visit as part of your FREE 1 year maintenance agreement forward and conducted this visit.  We determined the unit had a warranty issue that we are correcting under your generator warranty.  In a few weeks, we will make another FREE visit to your home to verify that the warranty repairs made to your unit continue to show that your unit is fully operational.

Lastly, as part of your 1 year FREE maintenance agreement we will make a 2nd visit to your home in approximately 6 months.

This is the direction we intend to proceed and feel this is a reasonable course of action.

I guess a few things strike me about this note.

1. I think it fails the “you/we” test. It’s more about them, than me.
2. It doesn’t really give me what I was looking for…a sense of empathy at my frustration and irritation that their product let me down when I needed it.
3. With the all caps “Free", it’s almost a bit condescending, like I don’t appreciate their position. Which I may not, but it doesn’t come across well.

There are about 100 things they could have done in response to my situation. At the end of the day, people want companies to care. Of course the product should work, of course, the warranty should be honored. That’s the obvious stuff.

What’s not obvious is the compassion.

And that’s where you can make your money.

It need not be expensive either.

They could have written me a handwritten note, sent me some flowers, sent a few flashlights, just had a call from the CEO to say, “hey, that must have sucked, I’m sorry it happened. We feel your pain.”

Instead, it feels like it was a “hold the line on our profit margins and don’t give anything up.”

So, does the product work?  Yes.

Is the service good? Yes.

But, have they turned me into a raving fan so that I tell all of my friends about how they too must get generators and how they, too, must buy it from this particular company?

No.

Subscribe to this blog by email.
Enter your email address: