Here’s the story of how a random act of customer service completely backfired . . .

A while back, I released a DVD titled, Present Like a Pro (PLP).  This video of my best presentation tips turned out much better than expected, thanks to quality vendors.

Present Like a Pro continues to sell at a brisk pace, especially at during my Present Like a Pro training sessions, such as the one I’m giving March 3 in Troy, Michigan.

Nonetheless, I was shocked at what happened during my product launch.

My launch concept was inspired by two marketing campaigns I had studied:

1)  Russell Brunson’s “free plus shipping” technique and

2) The Hyatt Regency hotel chain, which at the time was offering “random acts of customer service” to guests.

The DVD was priced at $49, but I decided give it away to the first 1,000 people on my list who showed interest.  This seemed like a fabulous idea, but I was truly shocked at what happened next!

Random act of customer service backfires!

My data base consists primarily of business executives, middle managers, salespeople, and entrepreneurs such as speaker and authors.  I thought a $49 DVD offered free would kill.  But, initially, it didn’t.

Here’s what happened.

A few people were paranoid about the free offer.  An East Coast woman who has been on my list for YEARS, called to make sure the offer wasn’t a phishing scam.   Noted.

A substantial number of people didn’t follow instructions, resulting in lots of back-end customer service support.  In other words, the auto-processes we set up actually created work for my team and me.  Oops!  Noted.

Finally–and here’s the shocker–after receiving my offer of a free DVD valued at $49, a stunning number of people quit my list!

I couldn’t be more surprised!  My “random act of kindness” was causing me to lose customers!  Er . . .noted

I suppose some of these folks never give presentations.  Perhaps some of them were not interested in self-improvement.  Whatever the reason, my team and I went back to the drawing board to create — a second marketing campaign that we’re using to this day.

To date, the Present Like a Pro DVD has generated thousands of dollars in sales and since I continue to market the product to my distribution list, much of that money has come from people who turned down the free offer during the product launch!  Noted.

Marketing lesson #153: When customers don’t recognize a good deal that you’ve offered, it’s your fault.

By the way, I haven’t given up on offering random acts of customer service.  People on my “dist list” are frequent recipients.  Sign up for my free 5 Cool Ideas newsletter today and collect hundreds of dollars in freebies every year!

-Michael Angelo Caruso, Royal Oak, Michigan

Tags: 5 Cool ideas, Hyatt Regency, michael Angelo Caruso, michigan, Present Like a Pro, random act of customer service, Russell Brunson, Travis Millward

This entry was posted on Monday, January 31st, 2011 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Communication, Creativity, Customer Service, Entreprenuers, Growing Your Business, Information products, Internet marketing, Marketing, Problem Solving, Sales and Marketing, Self improvement, Selling, Seminar, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.