The Story Of A Memorable Friday

Today started out simple. AT&T as an Internet provider of my corporate apartment in the city and a new router was to arrive this morning shipped overnight.

When the UPS truck pulled up at 9am sharp, I anticipated getting the box and getting the Internet running even faster.

Instead, the UPS driver handed me an overnight letter envelope.

Nope. Not addressed as coming from AT&T.

The UPS “urgent overnight” package was shipped to me from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Sounds like a law firm, but it’s instead a financial advisory stepchild.

Inside the envelope was a simple post card stating, “Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is pleased to announce that ‘so-and-so’ has accepted the position of First Vice President, Financial Adviser.”

So-and-so is a new agent that I have been working with from another financial advisory firm.

When I showed the announcement card to the UPS driver, he quickly replied… well I am sure it is something valuable they sent you on that card because that sender paid close to $30 to get it to you overnight.

I am sure that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s Duluth, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta) brand office was focused on getting me to switch over my investment portfolio to them since they hired the agent managing the account.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney… at least this local Atlanta office… probably has little-to-no understanding of what an action like this conveys about their brand in an economic environment where small business owners are having to tightly manage spending costs to deliver some form of financial return.

Shortly after I called the Atlanta Morgan Stanley Smith Barney office and left a message of concern, the agent they hired who I had worked with, so-and-so, called me. He was unaware of my calling concerned about the use of UPS “urgent overnight” delivery.

He laughed when I asked why would his firm spend close to $30 versus $.50 to mail the announcement card, and replied, “well, you know, that is the personality of my new firm.”

I quickly replied that while I think he’s a nice guy, there is no way in heck that I am going to move my investment portfolio over to a financial company that places little-to-no value on how it manages its own spending.

BIG BRANDS often do dumb, stupid things… round #2.

Later when I got the snail mail delivery, there was another letter that surprised me.

The letter was sent from a Volkswagen dealer also out of Atlanta… Gunther Volkswagen at the Mall of Georgia. The letter was sent “direct from the desk of Joseph Gunther” himself.

In the letter, Gunter “personally offered” me $29,883 for my Volkswagen Touareg … an offer higher than $28,460 that he offered me in a “personal” letter three weeks ago.

When I received the letter from Joseph Gunther three weeks earlier, I picked up the phone the moment I received it and spoke directly to Joseph Gunther about the offer.

Specifically I thanked him for the offer…the only problem was that I no longer had possession of the car and never owned it. I returned the leased car back to Volkswagen nearly 2 years ago.

Embarrassed, he told me it was a mistake in their “database” and he would personally make sure it was corrected.

Upon the receipt of the letter this morning, I picked up the phone again and called Joseph back. He was not there, but I was sent over to their “head of sales.”

When I outlined the scenario that occurred, the first response I received was that it was not a fault of the dealership. If anybody was at fault, it was the firm that does the mailings.

“The Buck Stops Here” can play several roles in this scenario… the least of which is that other customers receiving letters like this probably will not even take the time to express it directly over the phone to the dealership.

It my case... "The Buck Stops Here"... Mr. Gunther will certainly not be receiving any of my future business... along with the other folks who read this blog!

Dealerships of BIG BRANDS often do dumb, stupid things.

The third highlight of my morning was simply another chapter of an ongoing BIG BRAND saga.

After an hour and 20 minutes on hold, I finally… FINALLY… got a live person from AT&T on the phone to ask where was the router box that was to be delivered this morning.

The person at AT&T was a nice person. I give her extra credit for being nice.

Turns out, that the router box was not being delivered today.

Instead, the shipping order was placed today. The box will arrive on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, no one will be here to receive the delivery.

I know it sounds boring and you are probably wondering… why is this part of the story included in this blog? What does it have to do with BIG BRANDS doing dumb things?

Well, after being on hold for more than an hour and 20 minutes, an “aha” insight hit me.

When I called to place the order and keyed into the automated answer service that I was a NEW customer, an AT&T person answered on the other end of the phone within less than a minute.

Soooo… I ended the call where I had been left on hold and called the same number back…but this time when the automated system asked me for the phone number on the account, I entered in that I was a new customer and did not have a number.

Guess how long it took for the nice person from AT&T to answer the call.

Less than a minute.

Maybe someone needs to send the CEO of AT&T that chapter of Marketing and Sales 101 that it costs a lot more to land new customers than it costs to retain existing customers.

Then again, if you are a BIG BRAND that has a monopoly on the marketplace, perhaps you don’t care.

A new client that I landed yesterday is a German company that oddly is in the business of owning and constructing cell phone towers.

I am really looking forward to working with this client because they hired our team based on strong belief that a brand has to represent something of value… that is competitively unique… and most of all, believable and translated directly in the experience with the brand.

That’s refreshing.

Enough about AT&T, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Gunther Volkswagen.

Enough is enough!

My final observation on this Friday… the glass is indeed half full for businesses and entrepreneurs that care enough to venture out and deliver a positive brand relationship with their customer base.