The One Week Discount

I am a bit of a pill popper when it comes to vitamins. I have no idea whether they are actually making me healthier/keeping me fitter/adding to my youthful aura, but if there is a link between how feverishly one believes in these things and how much they actually work, then I am on to a good thing. The downside to swallowing all these vitamins every day is that the price tag can get pretty high, which is why I am a gold card carrier at GNC. For those of you not familiar with the program, it allows you to get 20% off your purchase the first week of every month.

So you can imagine what happens. As I get to the bottom of one of my vitamin bottles I start obsessing about whether I have enough to get me through to the first week of the following month. Will I have to start cutting some of them in two to make them go further? Or find a friend who takes the same vitamins and ask to borrow a few until I can replenish my supply?

However, what usually happens is that I get so busy that I don't have the time to get to GNC in the first week of the month, so I end up having to pay full price. This happened to me this month, when I rushed into the store on the 8th of the month and tried to beg to be allowed to use my gold card since I was only one day late. The sales associate gravely told me that the promotion had ended the day before and that there were no exceptions. Damn.

So this made me ask myself why GNC limits the offer to the first week of every month anyway. I mean if you pay your annual dues to have a gold card then you are probably a loyal customer so what does it matter what day of the month you shop the store? It probably results in the majority of gold card customers flooding the store the first week of the month and then hardly darkening its doorstep for the other three weeks. Unless they are like me and find that they have annoyingly missed the first week and have to forego the discount and then they are dissatisfied shoppers anyway.

So I guess I am one of their frequent shoppers who needs this loyalty program explained to me, because I really don't understand the benefit to the shopper of this one week a month deal. In the meantime, I am still grumbling about having missed the cut off date by one day......

Robotic Service.

Firstly, let me say, that I am actually a big fan of Biscuitville. I try to stay away from cooked breakfasts, but when I do give in to temptation, they really do have excellent biscuits which you can watch being made from scratch. Sometimes, I will just get an order of scrambled eggs, which are always hot and moist - yum.

However, there is one thing that diminishes my pleasure a degree or two. Every time my daughter and I go through the drive thru they start the conversation by saying 'do you want to try a combo?' This statement, not only seems vaguely meaningless to me, but also very impersonal. We go through the drive thru at least 1-2 times a week and they know us personally at this point. When we actually get up to the pick-up window, they are always very welcoming and cheerful. They even recognize my voice - which I guess isn't too hard because of the British accent. So why still inflict the robotic 'do you want to try a combo' on me every time I go there? How about asking something a little more personal such as 'what looks good to you today?'

When I went through the drive thru most recently, I couldn't help myself asking the women at the cash register why she had to say 'do you want to try a combo?' every time anyone came through. She admitted that she hated saying it, but that Biscuitville management would really have her butt if she didn't say it. Yikes!

The whole experience left me feeling how out of touch with consumers many companies really are. Trying to force a combo down my throat - "if you don't get one this time, by golly we are going to keep asking until you do" - does not make me feel like a valued and special customer to them. There are so many things that they could ask their customers that would feel a great deal more personal and interested in providing the food that will deliver exactly against each individual customer's needs.

I don't think that it is possible to approach service in any category from a 'one size fits all' perspective - or at least that's how I see it. Hmmm.....maybe it is time for some scrambled eggs......

Is 'Being Late' a Marketing Strategy?

Okay, I admit that this is a bit off topic for the Frustrated Female, but I wanted to write about it anyway. I have made the observation that people who are generally late for meetings, appointments etc. seem to actually have the upper hand over those of us who are always nauseatingly on time. Yes, I am one of the latter group, and frequently find myself sitting at a restaurant, conference room or any other sort of table, waiting for someone else to arrive. The irony is, that although the 'on time' group should actually feel professionally and personally superior for always been so punctual, I have this sneaking feeling that the 'late group' are in the superior position, because we are the anxious ones who are waiting and they are the breezy ones who are being waited upon.

Although being late is obviously not a real marketing strategy, I wonder whether it's second cousin - playing hard to get - actually is one. After all, when it comes to many forms of goods and services, it is often the case that if something desirable is in short supply or is hard to find, it naturally makes everyone want it even more. In fact, the whole dynamic can create a whole movement behind a particular brand, product or service as people scramble to be one of the lucky few that actually have one of these wonderful things in their possession.

Take Starbucks for example. Although there are many people that still love Starbucks, it was probably at its most desirable when it was perceived as a little 'hard to get' - slightly out of reach both economically and geographically. Once everyone decided that it was a worthwhile daily treat and Starbucks popped up on every corner, it lost a little bit of its magic. Likewise, there is nothing more attractive than having someone serve a particular kind of cheese or chocolate that can only be found in a certain remote corner of the world.

So perhaps marketers everywhere - including myself - should be working out how to make their products or brands seem 'hard to get' rather than focusing on messaging that is hard sell in nature and focused on getting people to buy more.

Is Cheerios A Medicine??

I just read that the FDA are slapping the makers of Cheerios on the proverbial wrist for making advertising claims about the reduction of cholesterol. My overall reaction to this news is that this is probably a good thing, since with the cost of health care these days, I have a vision of everyone with a cholesterol problem rushing out to stock up on Cheerios rather than going to the doctor, taking some serious cholesterol medicine or even starting a proper nutritional program.

However, on reflection I realized that perhaps my reaction should be a bit more complicated than that. The positive thing about Cheerios claiming to help reduce cholesterol is that at least it is a step in the right direction when it comes to how America consumes breakfast. With 40 million people in this country qualifying as obese, and another 20 million or so being categorized as over weight, we could sure do with some help. My guess is that the vast majority of Americans eat more than a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, with many of them tucking into large portions of bacon, eggs and pancakes. The upshot of this is that if the makers of Cheerios - motivated obviously by self-interest all the way - can get even a few of these people to start eating cereal for breakfast rather than a high fat or fried option, then we might start to see a decline in the average weight of American adults.

I think that we need some 'everyday' solutions to the myriad of health problems that we are all starting to experience due to our less than healthy lifestyles, but are tending to ignore because we can't afford to sign up for outrageously expensive monthly prescriptions. I have personally had quite a lot of luck taking natural remedies for some every day health problems - anyone heard of taking nettles for allergies? I would not dare to go as far as to say that a bowl of Cheerios even falls into the same camp as a natural medicine/remedy, but it might be a small step in the right direction We certainly need a few of those......

Being Mean Makes The Sale!

Okay this isn't exactly what I think as a customer, but I have to believe it is what a lot of the more expensive women's apparel stores believe.

My mother came to visit last week-end, and we went to a few of the nicer apparel stores in the area to try to find her a new suit for her up and coming trip to England (personally, if I didn't have to occasionally wear the odd suit to a business meeting, I wouldn't bother with them, but that's just me).

At one of these stores in particular, we ran into a whole bevy of female sales assistants who seemed to be trying to out do each other in terms of who could be meaner. It felt like they believed that the more they could make us feel priviledged for being in the store being waited on my them, the more we were likely to buy.

Does this really work for some women? It doesn't work very well for me. I am the type of woman who prefers to be waited on by someone who is relaxed, warm and welcoming and makes me feel good about being in the store. I am looking for someone I can trust and feel reassured by, rather than someone who takes one look at my poor excuse for an outfit and makes me feel inadequate.

I do know that there is a certain amount of reverse psychology in the sales process, because I have found that in my business as well. It really does seem to be the case that 'if you play hard to get' with potential clients, that they are more likely to want to work with you than if you are too keen and eager.

Okay - stop the presses. A female colleague of mine has just informed me that she used to be a sales associate on Rodeo Drive, and that she was instructed to be mean to the customers because the meaner you are, the more they buy. So perhaps it really does work in a retail environment as well. I need to think about applying this psychology to my marketing business. Who can I be mean to first?

Totally Confident I am Not

I just saw the new commercial for GM's Total Confidence Program and unfortunately it makes me realize that nothing much has changed when it comes to US automakers.

It is true that consumers, especially women, want to be able to trust and have confidence in the brands that they are giving their custom and their loyalty to, so GM has that part of the equation right. However, the rest of the equation just isn't working for me.

My perspective is that the reason why consumers lost confidence in GM is because they were incredibly short sighted and instead of building cars that consumers really needed - smaller, smarter and more fuel efficient - they continued to build the ones that the company thought would make them the most money. They also continuously shunned the idea of building cars that were really going to be more environmentally friendly in favor of those that were large and did very few miles to the gallon. The consequence of all of this bad planning, was that the company had to have a huge injection of bail out money; they have just taken another $5 billion this week.

So what do they do? They come up with something called The 'Total Confidence Program' that has nothing to do with righting any of the wrongs that have caused their problems. They have merely re-packaged some of the products and services they already had, such as a 5 year warranty and On-Star, and called them a Total Confidence Program. The campaign and the program have left me feeling that GM hasn't learned any of the lessons that it should have over the past 12 months and is just carrying on doing business the same way it always has.

I guess that I should be feeling 'totally confident' in GM at this juncture, but for some reason I am feeling 'totally unconvinced'.

There's a Man in My Room!

I just came back from a business trip in Chicago where I had the good fortune to stay at the Sofitel. This is a truly lovely hotel and one of the best I have stayed at in a long time. However, there was one small thing that bugged me, although it is a fairly consistent experience across most hotels.

Maybe it is just me, but if I order room service - especially after I have indulged in a bubble bath and put on a comfy robe - I would really prefer if room service was not delivered to me by a guy. I think that many women feel a little vulnerable when they are traveling on business alone - in fact I know that this is the case from a research study I did on female business travelers - and appreciate hotels that have good safety practices. I am certainly not saying that it isn't safe for a hotel to send a male waiter up to a woman's room for room service; I certainly have never had any problems. It is just that some of us feel that sense of vulnerability when we are are standing in a hotel room with a robe on and a guy we have never met before is standing in the same room behind a closed door.

Due to this sense of vulnerability, I find myself debating whether or not to use the 30 minutes before the food is delivered to enjoy that desirable bubble bath. Should I keep my business clothes on? Put on some armor in the form of bright red lipstick? Get out my computer so that I look businesslike and efficient? Pretend to be speaking to my husband on the phone? Aaagh.......

I would love it if a hotel asked me whether I would prefer a female server when I order room service. It would be the cherry on the cake. That step that would make me a loyalist forever. Worth thinking about all you hotel chains out there!