Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Yup, they arrived. Yesterday I actually received my eight (not twenty) Omaha Steaks burgers for $1.98. I am super excited for them, because $1.98 is still a really great deal for 8 choice burgers delivered to my door, but I can't help but leave this whole situation still scratching my head for Omaha Steaks.
I wonder just how many of us blog-reading, deal-posting, bargain fanatics really tried to place orders using the "two promotions"? I would *love* to know. Regardless, a company should honor its own mistakes and fulfill the orders we thought we were placing. Some of the really early birds got their full 20-burger-for-$1.98 orders, some of us got 8, and yet many were left not getting anything at all. I wonder what kind of impact it had on their company's reputation, especially in tough times right before the holidays?
I guess I won't know the answers to some of these questions, but yesterday I read an interesting post on Money Saving Mom's blog. She had a post (here) about a little children's DVD company called Kinderbright offering a free DVD in return for some parents' reviews. Due to the traffic of her site, Kinderbright was inundated with requests and issued this email to her:
We would like to thank you for posting our offer on your site. After more
than 440 requests in 3 hours, we can no longer offer the dvd for free. We
had been averaging about 2 requests per day before this.
We will honor all the requests received this evening (by approximately 7:45
central time), for the free Volume I, but it may take a number of weeks to do it.
We have changed the webpage, and we are now offering your visitors a
discounted price of $8.95 and free shipping.
Again, thank you. Based upon the responses we've received thus far from
viewers, we feel confident your moms, dads, and kids will find the dvd's
worth the wait.
Kind regards
I read that and immediately thought of the Omaha Steak thing. I think Kinderbright's email displays exactly how a company should react in this sort of day and age, when an offer can go 'viral' with little warning.
1 comments:
Stumbled onto your blog...
I just had to input here...I FULLY agree with you on this. I tried the Omaha Steaks deal, and was infuriated at the way the handled the whole deal. It was my first time placing and order with them (I had been thinking about it before)and I will never ever ever do business with them again. They treated it as if, we the customer, were the ones in the wrong, when indeed we were not.
Anyway..I, too, wonder what sort of impact it will have on their business. I know more than a handful of people were oh so not happy about it, and like me, refuse to give them any form of business again.
I'm enjoying reading your blog... :)
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