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Print Out Coupons, I posted this in the advertising forum thought more people might see it here. Found out the coupon was from a operator in the great state of Ca.
Postby Dennis Cashner » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:44 pm
Please, If use print out coupons on line, Please put your location on the coupon. I had a lady present a coupon to me last week, The price was lower than what I charge, The coupon was a Heaven’s Best Coupon and it had no location on it. The lady started to get a little testy with me when I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t my coupon, and each operator sets their own pricing. Since there wasn’t a location on it she acted like I was trying to scam her. I went ahead and did the job for the price that was on the coupon, but it didn’t make me a happy camper. Please just add your location on the coupon and the coupon is only good in that location. Thank You. DennisHi Dennis,
I had an operator who last week refused to honor a 10% discount coupon (he was doing a 3-room special), it was from Florida, but another part of the state. It is the same situation you were in, no details of areas served on coupon. The real bad part is now the customer threatens to run ad in newspaper, Heaven’s Best runs coupon discount ads and then does not honor them. This operator now has a lot of damage control in front of them. What if the coupon said 50% off instead of 10% ? With all the printers and scanners out there today, someone could eaisly make fradulent coupons that look real. I just watched story on TV where people are making counterfeit coupons for grocery store products and they are making a “ton” of money. After talking with Corporate about this problem, I think they are going to discuss the problems that are happening or might happen, in the next newsletter. Any other operators care to share how they take care of coupons?
PS
Hope to see you at seminar
Ron
If I put a coupon/special/gift certificate out there, it better have my phone number on it, because what is the point of the coupon if the customer doesn’t know how to reach me to use said coupon? That right there should eliminate the issue. I also put my areas on there out of respect for my neighboring operators in case the coupon got legs and managed to make it out of my area. That said, if it was that big of a stink, I would honor the 10% off. It is a chance to get yourself another customer, and if you don’t have room for 10% off in your margins, you aren’t charging enough in the first place. Turn it on the customer and instead of being the bad guy, say you know what, I am really not supposed to take that coupon as it is not from me, but I will make an exception in this case. If the price was extremely low compared to what I would normally charge, I would make sure to let the customer know what the cleaning would normally run. Also, the fine print “some restrictions apply” at the bottom of a coupon is a nice way to try and cover these types of situations as well (won’t always works, but helps).
As an operator, if another operator somehow had a situation like this with a customer that somehow got one of my coupons and the price was way below what they charged, I would pay them the difference of the price or I may call the customer to let them know that it was my coupon not there’s, and was really meant to be used in my area. Or maybe I would send them a gallon of 101 to help cover some of their costs. They shouldn’t take a hit for my poor marketing. Just my 2 cents.
Dave, very, very well thought and said. Great positive thinking!
Just had a new customer call because she read about us (guessing HB as a whole) in Money Magazine. That’s pretty cool. Downside, she asked me if she could use coupon HB01 when she was scheduling the job. I had no idea what she was talking about and she said the coupon said to mention code HB01, yet she had my number, so that seemed even more peculiar. She was an older lady, so she could have been confused a litte, but I have no coupon that says this. I did tell her that we have coupons on our personal website she could use, but that one wasn’t one of ours. I asked what site she was on and she couldn’t really figure it out. Needless to say, she is still looking forward to our cleaning we have set up, but just another instance of a coupon out there that may not be properly defining the area it can be used in…….or she just could have just been hitting the sauce early….
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