Deal or No Deal? How (Not) to Run Promotions
Promotions run through advertisements or emails can be great ways to convert otherwise on-the-fence shoppers into buyers. I am currently looking at replacing my BlackBerry and while reading a story on the future of Google (they’ll be just fine) I ran across this ad.
I’m not interested in buying this phone, it will be outdated in another couple of weeks, but I was interested in how much they were on sale for. So I clicked on the ad and was prompted by Cingular to enter my work or school email to see if I qualified for Premier discounts. I entered my college email address (I still use it for personal email) and was congratulated for qualifying. Hurrah, I went to check my email as per instructions. I followed the link and saw insanely great savings.
UPDATE: For people who thought premier pricing doesn’t require a commitment, one look at the small print will tell you otherwise. Both premier and the regular price require the same two-year commitment.
The Nokia 9300 caught my eye as a truly “do everything” phone. And even better, I was going to save $475! What a Deal! Except I remembered browsing the Cingular site last week and seeing the phone for less than the $314.99 I was being offered. I checked and sure enough, $299.00 for the same phone under the same 2-year agreement.
No matter I thought. That Cingular 8125 is actually the phone for me. And I’ll be saving $530 of the base price, an even better deal than the Nokia!
Except I had to ruin the fantasy by once again checking the Cingular site for all those regular folk.
I’m not sure what Cingular is thinking. That’s another $100 dollars I wouldn’t have saved because I went to all the trouble of entering my email address, verifying it and using the link within the message to get back to the Cingular site. Even worse, they thought they were offering a discount to “USC Faculty & Staff” because of my usc.edu email address, but it’s only a lowly student email. At least verify who you are giving these fake discounts to.
And more importantly don’t assume your customers are stupid and will believe you are offering them a deal by email just because you say you are.
Posted by Chris | August 29, 2006
Pascal August 29th, 2006
That’s quite a pathetic story (on the part of Cingular). I mean, what in the world are they thinking, that all customers are fools?
And be watchful of the mail-in retbate, it probably _still_ comes as these gift cards. Impossible to use! They try once again to maximize breakage by making it very difficult to get all the money they promise you.
Chris August 30th, 2006
Pascal, you have a good point about the mail-in rebates. I recall an article (can’t find it right now) that pointed to the low percentage of customers who even bothered to send them in, let alone received a check in the mail afterwards.
Mattymatt August 30th, 2006
Hello, I wandered by from a link on Consumerist. Actually, I think this is rather smart of Cingular — what better way to get people to pay inflated prices than to tell them they’re special?
Chris August 30th, 2006
I agree it’s a great way to increase short-term profits, but with the helps of sites like consumerist and the more traditional “tell your friends” method this will come back to them.
Amit August 30th, 2006
So it’s not detailed here, but the cheaper price for the 8125 is usually only for new customers. If you are a current customer and wanted the 8125 then you would actually have to pay the 349. So for current customers you usually get a discount from the full price with Premier that a regular customer without Premier wouldn’t get.
Chris August 31st, 2006
For new customers these prices are like comparing apples to apples. Both require activation of a new contract and a two-year agreement. Current customers may get a discount with premier, but the premier service was being explicitly advertised to new customers.
insignificant thoughts » Blog Archive » links for 2006-08-31 August 31st, 2006
[…] Deal or No Deal? How (Not) to Run Promotions Cingular gives e-mail folks the benefit of paying more for something they give everyone for less. Aren’t they awesome? (tags: cingular att silly) […]
Jon September 1st, 2006
I got a phone on Premier pricing. It was the same situation, but I paid anyway. Why?
-The mail in rebate is still valid
-I got 15% off my monthly bill
-When I call support, I get the business support department
-You can get a new phone every 6 months
-You’re asked to fax in proof of employment, the form makes it clear that student IDs are accepted
Chris September 1st, 2006
Jon, I appreciate your help. Not wanting to actually buy a phone I gave up investigating after a few pages when it seemed clear that the contracts offered were the same.
However, these are definitely large differences that I did not take into account. I will say that Cingular should have pushed these benefits of using Premier more; this is the first I had heard of them. Thanks for the info.
Paul September 5th, 2006
It’s never good to gain one customer and lose their trust later on. It’s still best to work on the existing customer bases and expand your offering. At the end of the day, we all want customer loyality in business.
Dave January 23rd, 2007
I stumbled onto a link to the Cingular Premier site as well. I don’t work for the school in the plan, but I was wondering if they really check.
Has anyone switched their plan over to a discounted plan?
Do they require you to send anything in?