Selling Water continued

If you read the letter we sent to Poland Springs posted below, you may be wondering how Poland Springs responded. Anyone with sales experience will tell you that it is far easier to keep an existing customer than to develop a new customer. It is also a matter of sales fact, that happy customers will sometimes tell people about their satisfaction with a vendor's service or product. Sometimes a happy customer will even provide a reference. The unhappy customer, on-the-other-hand, will tell everyone about their bad experience. Everyone.

No doubt this is a human trait with Neanderthal roots. It is not at all important that you know I have found the most comfortable spot in the cave for sleeping. It is, however, critical that you do not drink the nasty water I found and more important still, that you tell me if you come across any nasty water.

Good news; you don't need. Bad news; you need.

Just like TV.

Back to Poland Springs...

We enjoyed good service and good water from Poland Springs for years. Did we write about it? No. Blog about it? No. Pay for it? Yes.

Why are you reading about our experience with Nestle Waters Poland Springs now? Bad service.

If I wrote about their good service, you wouldn't read it. Bad service, especially bad food service, you will read about. Understandably, yes?

The folks at Nestle Waters Poland Springs either don't care about dissatisfied customers or they have calculated the cost associated with having satisfied customers vs. the cost of keeping stupid customers who are willing to be treated like stupid customers.

There was a message from Nestle Waters Poland Springs in voicemail this afternoon. It was a computer generated automated "service call" confirmation.

Nestle Waters Poland Springs doesn't even try to keep unhappy customers and that can only mean one thing: They must have plenty of stupid customers.

Rebate Loans

I'd like to borrow $100 from you. If you don't have it in cash, I take credit cards so you can borrow it to lend to me. I'll pay you back, not with interest, but eventually. I'll give you a form to fill out and some barcodes on a box and maybe a coupon. You fill out the form, make copies of everything and mail it all to me by a certain date. Let's say three or four weeks from when you make the loan. Long enough away that you don't feel compelled to do your paperwork right away. No rush.

If you forget about mailing me the paperwork, or mail it too late, I'll keep the money. If you do fill out the form -properly- and send it in in time, I might loose it. That's why you need copies. If I get the form and the barcodes on cardboard on time, I'll send you a check, eventually. Seriously, what is the point of borrowing a hundred dollars unless I get to keep it for a while.

When I do get around to sending you a check, look for an envelope that looks as much like junk mail as possible. If you throw the mail out because it looks like the last thing a check would come in, I get to keep the money.

What am I going to do with the hundred that you are paying credit card interest on? Why make interest on it of course.

Selling Water

Dear Poland Spring,

We can well imagine the meeting; it must have been like a Dilbert cartoon:

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“How do we increase our revenues? Ideas?”

“I know! I know! I went to a seminar. Let’s store as much of our inventory as possible at our customers facilities.”

“That won’t work. Buyers want just-in-time inventory.”

“Corporate Buyers want just-in-time inventory. Consumers don’t have time for all that. Just load ‘em up with our inventory. Just how much does it cost us per square foot to store this water? They store our inventory. We save a fortune! They won’t notice!”

“That’s right! These are people who buy water! Let’s start delivering anything they have ever ordered whether they order it or not! They won’t know the difference! Tell them it is improved service! ”

We complained when you started delivering extra. You said it wouldn’t happen again. We complained again when it happened again. You said it wouldn’t happen again. It happened again.

Then, frosting on the cake, you sent us a letter: “This change is being made specifically to improve our operational efficiency.” Too funny. We are going to store more of our inventory at your place…”to improve our operational efficiency.”

Our next scheduled delivery is for July 23^rd. Your cooler will be in the driveway. Please take it away. We will not be buying Poland Spring, storing Poland Spring or drinking Poland Spring anytime soon.

P.T. Barnum may have been correct, but we hope you fail and are replaced by a company striving to serve customers rather than make their customers garages and basements into free warehousing. Your greed has cost you (at least) this customer. The product is water you know.

Very Sincerely former customers,