Decent Marketing

Letting Customers Choose the Remedy for Bad Service

The service that hosts this blog is called Typepad.  Apparently they've been having some technical problems, and some users have not been able to use the service to post to their blogs or whatever.  So I get an email from them today, apologizing for the problems, informing me of the upgrades to their hardware, and offering the following:

By default, you will receive a credit for 15 free days of TypePad service. To get this credit you don't have to do anything; we will just credit your account.

That said, we recognize that customers have had different experiences with the service, so we want to give you the opportunity to choose more, or even less compensation. If you click the link below, you'll get a screen that offers you the following choices:

• While the performance issues caused me some inconvenience I mainly found the service acceptable last month.
  Give me 15 free days of TypePad.

• The performance issues made it very difficult for me to use the service on multiple occasions during the month.
  Give me 30 free days of TypePad.

• The performance issues affected me greatly, making my experience unacceptable for most of the month.
  Give me 45 free days of TypePad.

• I really wasn't affected and feel I got the great service I paid for last month.
  Thank you for the offer, but please don't credit my account.

Then the email has a link that sends you directly to the page where you elect the compensation you believe you should receive for their "less than stellar performance".   I elected to receive no compensation for two reasons:  1) I really wasn't affected, and I have a problem taking things I don't deserve; and 2) I find it very cool that they offered their customers a variety of choices of compensation, and were willing to accept it if every single one of us asked for 45 free days of Typepad.   I don't know how many millions of Typepad customers Six Apart has, but let's say everyone has the $8.95/month service and there are 10 million customers and everyone took the 45 free days:  I'm extremely mathematically impaired but that's giving away about 13 and a half million dollars right?

Given all the terrible customer services stories you see in the news and on the web, with people getting very little remedy other than a "sorry", if that, I like what Typepad is doing.  It made me feel like they gave a crap about their service, and gave enough of a crap about me that they want to give me some choice as to what would resolve the problem.  Granted, I wasn't terribly affected and there may be customers for whom 15-45 free days is not enough compensation.  But I'm guessing for most of us, the gesture alone went a long way. 

Tag: marketing

AdPulp: Weak Taglines Rule The Day

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks the Atlanta branding is lame. Check out comments from David Burn at AdPulp and Al Ries: Link: AdPulp: Weak Taglines Rule The Day.

Tags: marketing

ATL Launches New Tagline

So Atlanta launched its new tagline yesterday.  I want your feedback, so I'll tell you what it is in a second.  But first let me say that I've lived in Atlanta for 11 years now.  I LOVE it here.  It would take a LOT to get me to leave.  In the past, I must admit, however, that I always told people it was a great place to live, but not to visit.  I'm happy to say that is now changing.  We've got "the Ted", as in Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves play.  Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot, has really revived the Atlanta Falcons and made it great fun to both root for them and to attend games.  Bernie Marcus, the other co-founder of Home Depot, has just built the Georgia Aquarium.  Opening this month, it is said to be the world's largest aquarium and I hear it really is fabulous.   Coca-Cola is building a new museum/attraction.  Architect Renzo Piano just completed the design for new buildings that doubled the size of the High Museum of Art.  It now has a partnership with the Louvre in Paris to bring some of its collections here.   We've got the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site.  (And let me just say if those NASCAR people are smart, they'll put the new NASCAR museum here as well.)  We've got GREAT shopping -- nowhere else in the South will you find Neiman-Marcus, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom all at one intersection.  We've have a top-notch restaurant scene.  We have lots of big and interesting companies to work for, all you marketers out there, including Home Depot, Coca-Cola, UPS, Georgia-Pacific, Cingular, Chick-Fil-A, BellSouth and Newell-Rubbermaid.  (Sorry Delta, I had to leave you off the list because of the whole bankruptcy thing.)  Anyway, now that I've gone on and on about how much I love this place, let me thrill you with our new tagline:

Atlanta: Every day is an opening day.

Yep.  That's it.  That's what Brand Atlanta came up with.  This is what we're hoping will compete with "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".  I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't work for me.  Once all these new things have been opened, it will no longer be opening day, will it?  I'm having a hard time thinking of what opens in February in Atlanta -- what if people show up and there's nothing opening that day?  Yes, I know they were being figurative, but I wonder whether that line is compelling enough to spur people to act -- to plan conferences here and visit here for leisure.  It just falls a little flat.  Perhaps it's because I'm just not a baseball fan to begin with, and that's what I associate "opening day" with.   I would have rather seen something more like "Atlanta: It's hot here all year long."  That's a little more fun, playing off our location in the deep South, our unofficial moniker "Hotlanta" and the fact that we've got such a great restaurant scene, music scene, shopping scene, etc.  OK, I know.  I'm clearly NOT a copywriter, and I don't even play one on TV.  But plenty of you are creatives.  I know you're lurking out there with lots of interesting thoughts.  What tagline would you have given us?  Please share your ideas with Decent Marketing. 

P.S.  For all you smart alecks, don't send me anything stereotypical that mentions the Confederate flag or rednecks.  I'll just delete it ... unless I find it really amusing personally.

Tag: marketing