A few days ago I shared a Best Buy Coupon Offer that was really hot. The coupon promised $50 off a purchase of $100 or more when you used ANY MasterCard. While the coupon did have a fairly lengthy list of exclusions, there were a few glaring omissions, such as gift cards. To complicate matters, the coupon didn’t contain any sort of limits in the fine print. (For instance, limit 1 per customer or limit 1 per household.)
While the coupon had been initially sent via email to subscribers, controls were not set in place and the coupon quickly went viral, being shared on message boards and sites (including my own).
What ensued was this sort of nightmare:
Image source: Consumerist
At this point, people in corporate were probably wetting themselves. And they wouldn’t have been the first to have had a coupon or freebie promotion go south so quickly. Unfortunately, the story gets worse. Often it’s not the mistake that makes consumers most angry, it’s how the company chooses to address the mistake.
I wanted to share my thoughts as a consumer and coupon blogger as to how I think companies could handle coupon promotions such as these.
1. Enlist Consulting Services First. It will be money well spent to hire consulting services before launching what is obviously going to be a popular coupon campaign. Having a legal team review your fine print to ensure your company’s needs as well as the consumer’s are protected cannot be underestimated. Might I also suggest reaching out to bloggers such as myself? Many of us would be happy to be contracted on to share our knowledge of how promotions are received and how you might best structure them.
2. Consider Groupon or a Daily Deal Site. Now this might not always be a best bet, but given the high value of the coupon ($50 off $100), I was a bit surprised it was NOT an offer run through Groupon or Living Social! Using a reputable daily deal site as a third-party might have helped both Best Buy’s interests (they could’ve guided them through some of the legal & fine print process) as well as protection for the consumer (the consumer gets Groupon’s guarantee and can more easily ask questions about its usage).
3. If you Mess Up, OWN IT. When Best Buy realized that the coupon was being abused, they quickly tried to pull the plug and issued a new coupon, but only managed to share the revised terms on their forums page. Trouble is, they left the original coupon as a live link – so many customers came to the stores only to find at checkout they could no longer use the coupon in the way they wanted. Not good, Best Buy. If you need to amend an offer – make a public statement. They could’ve pulled the link to the coupon, made a statement on their Facebook page, website, or Twitter – but they didn’t. Even as of this posting, I see no such statement issued. Customers want to know that their concerns matter.
4. Don’t leave your staff hanging. While I appreciate that Best Buy was not censoring the many complaints flooding their Facebook page, I feel really bad for the poor Best Buy dude named “Jesse” who very patiently responded to the masses of irate customers. Best Buy, you need to give that guy a raise! That should not have been his sole responsibility! Give him some back up – issue a statement and apologize. I also really feel badly for the store employees and managers who are likely frustrated and confused and now having to deal with many upset customers. I get that they are front line customer service folks, but it very much appears they have no clear direction or back up from corporate.
5. Consider alternatives before pulling the plug. To me, Best Buy’s actions in how they handled it seem a bit over the top. Instead of imposing lots of new fine print – which included a deadline of ONE day as opposed to seven, excluding gift cards and additional items, and then insisting the item be a regularly priced $100 or more item – how about simply saying “no gift cards?” I think most reasonable customers would get that at checkout if they were told “no gift cards” or “one per customer.” By slightly changing the coupon’s terms (as opposed to drastically), many people still would’ve left Best Buy happy customers.
6. Offer a swift, “we’re sorry!” offer. Sure, this coupon offer was going to cost Best Buy big bucks. But it’s truly a lose-lose scenario as many people are disgruntled and pledging to shop elsewhere in the future. Suppose Best Buy were to issue $10 gift cards to folks that were unable to redeem the coupon that day. It’s not $50 off $100, no – but I think it would extend good will to those customers, acknowledging their frustration and giving them a good reason to give their store a second chance. A winning example of this – around the holidays I shared an offer for a free Advent calendar that ended up being a mistake. Everyone’s orders were cancelled, but then the company decided to give everyone that had tried to place an order a deep discount on that product along with a credit to their site. Hat’s off to that company! Not only did they acknowledge the error and apologize, they worked to give folks a second chance to shop there and not write them off entirely.
7. Remember to make Social Media your Friend, not Foe. You know what I love? I love it when one of my store partners or a brand reaches out to me and gives me a “heads up” about a hot upcoming offer. Befriending bloggers such as myself can be a very smart move because you can often help guide the conversation and make a smart connection directly to your customers via that blogger. Many of us are well connected – I’m currently a part of several online coupon blogging groups totaling several hundred bloggers. And, we talk. So if you have some exciting news about an upcoming promotion and you can help us understand your intent and how it’s going to work? Great. Reach out to us; often we can help you because we want to inform our readers how your promotion is going to work for them.
Honestly, I get mistakes happen. Behind these companies – even the big ones – are people. But it’s usually how the companies choose to handle their mistakes that indicate to me whether I’m a valued customer – or not.
Finally, a word to the shoppers who saw the flaw in this offer and decided to take it for all it’s worth at the expense of Best Buy and customers? Shame on you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, too! What was your experience with the Best Buy coupon if you tried using it? What suggestions would you give them for making it right? Have you stopped shopping at certain places over failed coupons or promotions?
Sound off.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
THANK YOU for that last part. I have been gradually trying to cull down the list of “deal blog” RSS feeds I follow, and although you don’t cover my local stores, this sort of thing is why I keep The Coupon Project on the list!
I feel like many couponers (not all, of course) seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, in a way. If WE make a mistake (forget to use a coupon, just miss the spending threshold for a catalina, etc) we want the store to cut us a little slack and fix it. But when THEY make a mistake, whether it’s a misprint, or bad judgement or whatever, we want it honored and DAMN the company that fails to do so.
Now granted, as you say, there are better ways to correct a mistake than what sometimes happens, but I think the kind of taking advantage that often happens is part of what gives the couponing community a bad name.
Thanks for your comments, Sarah.
I do think that there are some who wait for “opportunities” like this and then strike while the iron is hot. (Case in point, the site that that Consumerist image came from, which I won’t name.) Around here, I always want to help folks get the best deal that they can, but I do think we have a responsibility as couponers to be smart and ethical in our approach to shopping. I feel an even bigger responsibility in running this blog. I would have a hard time sleeping at night if I made it my goal here to teach people how to outsmart promotions at the expense of stores and companies. Not cool. Instead, I’d like to help people learn to save money, and get a good deal they can feel good about at the end of the day.
I too feel like it got way out of hand. I love Best Buy. So much so that I have been a Premeir Silver Member 4 years in a row. My local Best Buy is amazing. The staff are helpful and a few even know me by name. I can think of a dozen times one of them has gone above and beyond for me. I did not try to use this coupon. It seemed too good to be true and I don’t have a MasterCard. Was it poor taste to handle it the way they did? Yes. I saw people saying they aren’t ever going to shop at Best Buy again because of this. Mistakes happen. Yes I would be mad but as a long time couponer too many things about this coupon were fishy. I guess I have more important things to worry about. Best Buy should issue an apology but I wonder how many of the digruntled people would even notice? The whole situation makes me sad.
I think if they would’ve issued an apology or a “hey guys, that coupon isn’t good” notice quickly, I do think MANY people would’ve caught it and not tried to go to the store and redeem it. I think swift actions may have prevented more issues happening in-stores.
I have to agree – it always makes me sad when I see something like this happen. Particularly for the front-lines customer service staff as I mentioned that will no doubt take the rap for everything from upset customers.
“Finally, a word to the shoppers who saw the flaw in this offer and decided to take it for all it’s worth at the expense of Best Buy and customers? Shame on you.”
Basically this that you said sums up how I felt about it all. If there were not selfish people, out for only themselves then maybe Best Buy would have taken a less drastic action and some of the rest of us might have gotten to use the deal the way it was originally intended.
Keep doing what you do! I doubt it will lessen the number of selfish people who never leave enough of the good deals for the rest of us though.
The really sad part is the people that were buying the Amazon gift cards in scores, etc., predicted the coupon offer would be taken down shortly after their actions.
But, they did it anyways.
I recently had the worst retail shopping experience of my life at Best Buy, and that was before the coupon mess. I’m not a bit surprised they screwed this up so badly.
Thank you for this post. I have been home with sick kids so I wasn’t able to use this coupon. Of course I was looking to purchase an item for $100 and get $50 off. I did have an odd feeling about it so I didn’t push for my husband to use it.
Since you are on the subject of companies “oops” I would like to bring up JCPennys. Last year they had a plastic toddler step 2 table listed online for less than $20. It sounded too good but I was advised by the blogger that if indeed it was an error they would cancel the order. So I didn’t have anything to lose if it was a correct price. Sure enough it was a pricing error BUT they did try and fulfill as many orders as they could. Mine was cancelled and no table. I was pleasantly surprised to find a $50 credit to JCPenny in my email. I shopped online and wasn’t able to elect in store pickup so I paid for shopping on $50 worth of product. I think they went above and beyond the actual error.
And most recently Polaroid fototbar had a one day only free poster of a picture. I chose one off my cellphone to print. Said arrival was to be today. First thing this morning I get an email from them saying due to the overwhelming response it won’t arrive on time (not cancelled, just late) and a 25% off coupon.
I can’t imagine someone thinking that getting a huge amount of giftcards for 50% off just because you use your MasterCard would be ethically ok.
I guess what makes me laugh the most is how many people run their mouth about how they won’t shop at a place that makes a mistake. Honestly in a lifetime, every store will make a mistake. Gonna be kinda hard when you can’t shop anywhere. DRAMA!!!!!!
Georgia, I completely agree with you. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a post to this effect recently. It seems so often people say things like, “I’m not shopping at Papa John’s because of how they treat their employees,” but then that same person will shop at Walmart. Or you’ll have someone rail on about only buying organics and how good it is for the earth, yet do they know that the increased popularity of organic quinoa has meant that people in the areas that grow it can no longer afford it?! Or you’ll have someone say they won’t buy this, that, or the other based on personal experience or ethics – but after awhile, I wonder – where do you draw the line? When do you decide I will NEVER buy this item again? I’ve got to organize my thoughts a bit more on this topic, but I think it would be an interesting pieces to see what people have to say.
While I think this was a mistake, by no means would I pledge NEVER to shop Best Buy again about it. I wonder how many people would change their tune if Best Buy ran a similar, successful coupon promotion in a few months? People are fickle.