Pleasantville, is not a place but a way of doing business

Well you have probably been wanting to know the sequel to my Ultimate Electronics purchase. Did it really all turn out well?

On Thursday Josh Aubart drove the TV out to our house to personally set it up. He brought the audio guy, Ryen with him so Ryen could set up the audio for us.(Remember the audio was not included in the hook up.) They precede to set up the TV, Blue Ray, Bose and Cable. When I ask if my Ipod can be hooked up as well, they gladly tackle that challenge. Matter-of-fact, Ryen says, "this is fun. I love a challenge!"

Once they have it all hooked up, they look down at the four remotes we will be left with. They shake their heads and say, "do you really want to work with four remotes? We have a cool Logitech remote that we can program to do everything with one touch of a button. If you want we will run back to the store, pick it up and drive back out to program it for free. Usually the programing of this remote is $100." (Okay by now you are figuring this remote does all but make you French Toast in the morning.)

It sounds cool so we go for it. They drive all the way back to the store, buy the remote and bring it back to program it. They are smiling, whistling, and telling us they are "off work" so they don't mind doing this for us after hours.

Okay, so I have gone from "I will never step foot in there again" to "I have got to let people know about this." So if you too are looking for a great home theatre set up or audio set up, I encourage you to call the Ultimate Electronics in Edina Minnesota and ask for Josh Aubart. No matter where you are I bet he will take care of you! Pleasantville does exist and I love it!!

Anne Warfield

Bait and Switch Revealed

The TV is on and the ad announces that you can get this entire Leeza Gibbons set of Sheer Cover makeup for only $29.95! My girls are watching and saying, "Mommy, get it!" I thought, "hmm for only $40 with shipping, okay."

Then the call. The Bait. The Switch. The Ugh.

The call started with "for only an extra $9.95 plus $9.95 for shipping we can upgrade you to the deluxe edition that has 8 items." I said, "no thanks, I just want what was offered on the TV." She then tried to upgrade me to just 7 items. I said no. She then went to saying we can send you a 90 day supply versus a 30 day supply for just $29.95. I said, "I'm confused. Isn't $29.95 the price of the kit that is on the TV." She said, "yes and we will send you 3 months for just $29.95."

By this time I am irritated. So I asked her exactly what was different between that and what I say on TV. I asked her to give me the total she was going to charge me. Well, surprise it was going to be $97!

I said, "all I want is what was offered on TV. Please don't try to upgrade me or I will cancel the order." She said she understood and then proceeded again to try and get me to add two other products!

I told her to cancel the entire order. It ticked me off and it confused me. I called to just do what the TV offered and she tried to upgrade me SIX times!!!

So how many customers do you lose because you make things too confusing? How many do you move from being excited about your product to being so ticked that they will tell others to avoid it? Is it really worth the $15 upgrade to lose a client?

If they had just taken my order I might have gotten the products, loved them and continued to buy them. If I had loved them, this is a product that costs you $30 a month. So that means I would be a $360 a year customer. And if I turned 10 other friends on to this product it would be worth $3600 a year to them. And they lost it all due to a lousy need to constantly try to upgrade.

Look at any UN-WOWS in your company. Get rid of anything that confuses your customer, irritates them, or frustrates them. Every step in your company should be one that builds trust, not shatters it.

Give them the opportunity to upgrade once but not six times. After the first one it just feels like you want to make as much money off me as you can which feels slimy and distrustful.

Anne Warfield, http://www.impressionmanagement.com/