Customer relationship marketing is a complex term for a simple idea: take care of your customers and they'll come back.
So you can imagine the level of piss-tivity for me when something that should have been oh-so-right turned oh-so-bad this week.
Attentive "Somewhere Between..." readers will know how excited I was for the new Bruce Robison CD to be released this week. Like many music fans, I went to the artists website for details and found a glamorous offer to "Pre-order" the CD. Not only that, but I'd also get a free Mp3 from the new album that could be downloaded immediately. Well, hell, who couldn't pass that up?
So I quickly tap out my credit card info into the online form and hit the send before there's a chance for the site to say, "Sorry, sold out."
The first omen came when the Mp3 download didn't work. Sigh. I submitted an email to the website to see why I got an error when I tried to download the song. I also was wondering if the term "pre-ordered" meant they would send immediately, or time it to arrive on the national release date, which for music is usually on a Tuesday.
I got an email back that AllAccessToday, the company that apparently administers the web commerce sales for Bruce Robison, was working the problem and I should be able to download the song very soon. And, by the way, pre-ordered means they'll ship it as soon as they get it which should be maybe a few days early, but I should receive no later than the day of release.
Fair enough, I figured.
Yeah.... until release day came and went with no CD arriving in my mailbox. I emailed the good folk who had previously emailed me. I had never bothered to email them again after the Mp3 wouldn't download on several attempts. Wrote that off as a casualty of hype and cruddy web development. The answer I got back was interesting.
"I am sorry you are dissatisfied. I would be happy to issue you a refund for your purchase."
Well, that would make a big difference, I replied, noting I had finally received the CD the day AFTER national release and looked forward to hearing the album. It was post-marked on the day of release so they couldn't use the excuse that the mail held it up. I asked what I'd need to do to get such a refund back - perhaps send the CD back - figuring they would probably just say "No, keep it. We just want you to be satisfied."
Ha. Here's their actual response: "If the cd has been opened, we cannot accept the return, nor issue a refund. If it is unopened, feel free to send it back to us for a refund."
What a bunch of, well, marketing dorks. They thought I would not open the CD and wait for them to email me (the back-and-forth was taking a day each way as I sent an email at night, they'd open and reply the next day, etc.) What kind of music fan who orders a brand new release would not open the CD as soon as they get it to hear how it sounded? Further, what was I going to do - pirate the CD. When they already had my name and number?
Here's the crux of my beef, and something I quickly listed for the company in a response email that for some reason hasn't been answered. I paid a premium price for the album to: 1) get it a day later than I could have going to the local record store, 2) pay additional shipping cost on top of that, and 3) not get the free MP3 download offered as an added lure.
Then when I voice dissatisfaction, they give me the Wal-Martian excuse that they can't accept an opened CD. Umm, they are an agent for the artist directly. They could easily repackage it - but even if they couldn't because of some legal industry red tape - it would be cheaper to eat the cost of one CD vs. what it's going to cost them in a damaged relationship between their client, Bruce Robison, and one of his fans, a person willing to spend disposable income on the man's music and merchandise and who is passionate about it that he tends to tell people about his experiences.
So if Bruce Robison, his PR agency, label or even AllAccessToday use any of the available blog monitoring services to look for references to his new album "Eleven Stories" - please know you're not being represented well by AllAccessToday. (They even misspelled the title of one of the songs on his website where the songs scroll when snippets play on the site.)
Customer relationship management means developing a perceived personalized brand experience with the consumer. Underpromise and overdeliver. AllAccessToday had the opportunity to make up for their own miscues... and blew it.
