Everyday Marketing Ideas

This morning I woke up on my hard-as-stone mattress, stumbled out to the office and decided to make a phone call.

You see, three weeks ago I decided it was time to buy a new bed. I’ve been lusting after a foam mattress for literally a decade and-after tossing and turning all night with sharp pains running through my back-decided I’d reward myself for all the hard work I’ve done this year.

So I went online. I read all I could on the various memory foam companies that are out there and after exhaustive research decided on a little company in Pennsylvania called Isoform.

Now, their website isn’t much to look at. I’d be shocked if many people actually order online and even more shocked if anyone is actually convinced to shell out the dough for one of their mattresses because of the copy on their site.

But like I said. I’d done my research. And the price was right, so I called them up, told them what I wanted, handed over the keys to my credit card and sat back, figuring in about a week I’d be sleeping in astronaut-approved comfort.

I waited.

And I waited.

And then I called them up and the very nice woman on the line said “Oh, yea. It’s shipping out tomorrow.”

And then I went to Las Vegas.

And then I waited some more.

And then I called them again and the very nice woman on the other end of the line said “Let me look into this and call you back.”

But she never did. So I called up again, and the nice woman on the other end said “Oh, a machine broke. But it’s fixed now. And we’ll ship your mattress out to you tomorrow.”

And so I waited some more. And “Tomorrow” came and went.

And then it was this morning and I stumbled out of bed and grumbled my way to the telephone ready for war.

Because, here’s the thing. The very nice woman at isoform may have had a very good reason that my mattress hadn’t shipped to me yet. And she may have had a very good reason that she didn’t call me back when she said she was going to. And she may have had a very good reason that I had to call up this company over and over just to convince them to take my money and give me their product.

But as a customer, I don’t care.

I don’t care about broken machines, sick puppies, manufacturing people who are away on vacation, meteor strikes, sprained ankles, alien invasions or rabid boyscouts overrunning the factory floor.

And so on the line, I sort of told the very nice woman at Isoform that. I said “Hey, I don’t actually care. I just want my bed. And I’m really pretty disappointed in your customer service.”

And I think I hurt the very nice woman’s feelings. And for that I’m a little sorry. But in the end, she dashed over to the factory floor, found out what the problem was, talked to her boss, found out that a bigger, more expensive bed was being made and came back on the line and said “Mr. Haddad, one of our top of the line mattresses is being made right now and we’re going to ship that out to you today at no additional charge.”

And I said thank you and hung up the line.

And I have no idea whether I’m actually going to get my shipping confirmation today. Or whether that new mattress is going to show up in a few days. But I sure do hope so. Because THAT I care about.

Chris “Mr. Moneyfingers” Haddad is a strategic marketing consultant and direct response copywriter in Seattle, WA. He spends his days helping his clients make ridiculous amounts of money with well chosen words and his nights out on the dance floor looking for love. You can learn more at http://www.haddadink.com

Useful Links:

Get rid of those novelty Cufflinks and accessorise with some sharp men's jewellery.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 7:33 am and is filed under , Tips, Ideas, Marketing, Sales, Blog Carnival. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.