Social Media & Sales Promotion - aka - Communication Breakdown?

On the weekend my partner, sister and I went to a nearby pub for a Sunday pub dinner. Being a few days shy of payday, and frankly not being bothered to cook, I thought it would be a good opportunity to check out the MoneySaver application that I had recently downloaded on my iPhone from Niche Media. I haven't ever presented content on my phone to receive any form of value, but thought, "What the heck?". After all, it sure beats having to carry around a coupon in your wallet (who does that these days, except maybe my mum getting her petrol discount). There was one 'coupon' that offered a "Buy One Get One Free" on meals (or 50% if the meal was over $17) for a pub around the corner, so off we went to the pub at half time on the footy (Geelong vs. Adelaide).

Before we left the house, I wanted to make sure it would work, so I called the number on the voucher. (As a side note, when I pressed the number, my iPhone didn't give me an option to call the number as it usually does, I had to memorise it and manually enter it into the keypad - hard work these days). The first time the phone rang out completely. Hmm. I googled the pub to ensure the number was correct, and then tried again. This time, someone answered. The noise on the other end was loud - they must have been choccer-block-busy in there. I enquired about the app/voucher and asked what the T&Cs were, e.g. could I use it on a Sunday. I was told by the lady on the other end that I just needed to present my phone to receive my discount, and yes, it would work on Sundays. The lady must not have heard me over the noise asking what time their kitchen opened as she hung up. So, off we went.

Once we got to the pub, it was packed, mainly with people our age. We got our first round of beers and ciders and glossed over the menu. Only a few items were below $17 (e.g dips, bruschetta, nothing really substantial), which meant we probably would not be getting a meal for free.

Upon deciding what we wanted, my sister and I lined up to order, with my voucher ready to redeem. Long story short, the person taking our order stated that she could not accept the voucher because they only promoted on Shop-a-Dockets (e.g. the back of supermarket receipts).

When told that I had called earlier to ensure the voucher was legitimate she replied, "Well, we have a lot of girls working here". The waitress then said that she could accept my voucher if I printed it off and brought it in. I was flabbergasted. "How am I supposed to print this off when it is on my phone?" I asked. "I have absolutely no idea," she replied. I grumbled, paid full price and grabbed more beers. I was very annoyed and felt misled, as though I was the victim of bait advertising, lured to this chiched pub with the promise of cheap food. As we had already purchased drinks before ordering and were settled, I figured we should stay put... but I was not one happy camper.

When my food arrived (pictured below), the fish was cold and soggy.

I wondered whether this problem had arisen because such sales promotions (e.g. via social media platforms) are still new and perhaps aren't well established yet. Perhaps the waitress had not yet encountered this voucher and suspected that I had doctored the offer to score a free meal. On the other hand, I'm not sure where in the 'back-end' this could go wrong. How is communication to employees about this sort of sales promotion different to more traditional methods, e.g. hard-copy coupons? I considered Wag's comment on my previous post (about owners planting information), and darkly thought that perhaps this promotion was used as a bait advertising tool to entice customers and get them to 'stay and pay' via so-called 'unaware' employees. After all, one would think that a hard-copy voucher is much less likely to be denied redemeption by employees. What do you think?

One aspect is that return rates can be a bit distorted through an app/voucher, as there is no barcode to scan, but I'm sure there are (or will be) ways to overcome this.

I went home annoyed and pledged to contact the pub to complain. I am very interested to what they come back with and what their customer satisfaction management is like. After all, mistakes happen. As you can see in the above image of the app/voucher, I have blocked out the pub's details, as I'm not on a vengeful vendetta - hell hath no fury like a customer scorned...? Right now, I might return to this pub depending on how my complaint is handled. Anyway, it is now Tuesday and I plan to call this afternoon after the lunch rush. Stay tuned to hear how this issue is rectified!

And in the meantime, practice caution when taking up offers such as this until this sort of promotion becomes more common. I thought I had covered my bets by calling the establishment beforehand, next time I'll be sure to be even more vigilant!

What Should I Eat Tonight?

This is my first time blogging, and I am certainly excited to become more hands-on in this new, exciting and expanding aspect of marketing. It's funny how there are always new ways to reach consumers - prior to the blast-off of social media it was all about breaking through clutter and exposure via outdoor (or OOH) advertising. Prior to that, it was all about Malcolm Auld and Direct Marketing. Nevertheless, marketers are constantly experimenting with methods to acheive their KPIs. As such, I aim for this blog to be themed around two of my passions: marketing and food. I feel as though food, hospitality, home cooking and eating out have become a lot more... shall we say, trendier in recent years, and so I feel these increasingly popular topics make a fine pair.

 

In addition to FMCG giants utilising social media within their integrated marketing campaigns, we are also experiencing the rise of ‘food popularity’ where chefs become recognised celebrities (iconic Australian chefs such as Guy Grossi and Margaret Fulton are regularly featured in supermarket chains' advertising messages), as well as sites like foodcandy.com enabling ‘foodies’ to congregate over, well, food. Nowadays there are heaps of mobile applications providing recipes and information on establishments. Not to mention an increasing presence of cooking shows such as Masterchef and Iron Chef which are in turn, supported by social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and the like. I plan to disuss topics such as this over coming weeks, so watch this space.

I have become especially interested in food blogs which examines places to eat – as someone not from Melbourne, I enjoy spending time (though not necessarily copious amounts of money!) sussing out suggested places and drawing my own conclusions (try thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com). In addition to blogs, I enjoy utilising other social media platforms (such as urbanspoon on my iPhone) in conjunction with other systems, such as the paperback The Age Good Food Guide and communication provided by the organisation iteself. Personally, however, I do place a higher amount of integrity in the judgement of other peoples' reviews - I feel they are more honest and realistic over someone who eats out as part of their occupation (you can tell I'm not jealous at all!).

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Marketer or not, do you use blogs (and other social media tools) as a way to find information about your own hobbies, and as it has been suggested, do you rate other consumers' reviews above a paid message provided by the advertiser? Further, why/why not?