The Customer Is Always Wrong

“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.”

Philip Kotler

Here is the audio version of this post, background snoring compliments of Zen Louis Kovner, my perfect pug.
The Customer Is Always Wrong

I have a very kinda dislike/dislike relationship with daily deal platforms such as Groupon, Living Social, etc. Trusting my gut has always served me well and my gut has always told me most of these platforms care about one thing and it’s not small business.

It’s so easy for many small businesses to get lured into quick revenue and promises of 1000’s of new clients running in the door. And these platforms have gotten so good at presenting all their “facts” that claim their “deals” are game changers.

If you have experienced one of these deals, you may have had one of these outcomes or a mix of the three:
1. Awesome sales, unhappy team members and no return customers.
2. Not so awesome sales, unhappy team members and some return customers.
3. Good sales, happy team members, some return customers.

To me, these platforms are commodity builders, not brand builders. Brands are built through value and meaning, commodities are endless amounts of the same stuff for the lowest price.

So what does this have to do with customers? Well, one of my clients has actually been successful with these types of deal platforms, to my dismay I might add. But then again, they do so many things right. They do not excessively discount, they provide an exceptional experience, they get buy in from their team and they have a program to retain the clients they get via these deals.

Last week, I had a jaw dropping interaction with a deal site that inspired this post. They claimed that the last promotion run with my client was “unsuccessful” and gave me all the reasons why. What floored me is that they never once asked how the promotion did for my client. Had they asked, they would have known my client was very happy, had retained a high percentage of the clients and was ready to sign on for another promotion.

Here is a portion of the email interaction with this sales person:

Sales Person
“It looks like the performance has greatly been hindered because we haven’t added enough value (I’m basing this on historical data from our market and what has been shown to work well) for the consumer. Since this is an impulse buy we need to make sure the customer sees an amazing value right off the bat. This helps in purchases.”

Me
“My client has been very happy with the performance of the previous promotions. They are not looking for a high volume of deal chasers, but for potential long term clients. They have been very successful with retaining the clients that discovered them via these promotions. I would expect success be defined by how the business did with the promotion, not the other way around, or at least seeing both sides before determining if something was successful. If you suggest a higher discount for more volume, we will respectfully pass.”

What is wrong with this picture? A million things…
1. I would think success would be defined by the customer, not the other way around.
2. By value they mean lowest price, which is absolutely sad and disturbing on many levels.
3. They fail to define “work well”, yet I know all it really means is it worked well for them, not my client.
4. Since when is the customer always wrong?

Whether you believe the customer is always right, wrong or a mix of the two, what never changes is that we must define value in the customers eyes and find out what’s important to them, because at the end of the day, if the customer sees value, they buy stuff. And value does not always mean lowest price.

I always knew this was how these deal platforms really felt, but I had never seen it in writing until last week. In the end, the deal platform lost a customer because apparently, the customer is always wrong.

(shared with LOVE from Nina)