Yesterday I went to an auto parts store called Supercheap Auto Parts. This is a chain store in Australia and New Zealand. I needed a new battery for my Pajero. They used to have a catalogue at every bay where you could find which part, globes. wiper blades, batteries, etc. was the right one for your vehicle. No more. Still, I had my iPhone and could look it up online. I have membership so I saved about $100 on the retail price. All good in the end, I got what I needed, fitted it and the car is fully functional again. Here’s where it gets weirder. Today, I get an email from them offering me a 25% discount on the same battery on a special for 24 hours only. Why would I need to buy a second battery less than 24 hours after I bought one? I’m going to store it for the next 5 years until I need another new one? Then, 22 minutes later, I get another email from them asking for feedback about their service from the day before. Who the hell is going to give them a good rap after that? I didn’t bother to open their emails. This is not customer service or customer engagement. What could they have done better? Perhaps the first email could have been about battery maintenance and how to make it last longer. Perhaps given me some ideas of where to dispose of the old battery. Maybe even offering something that might be useful to monitor the battery, such as a volt meter, or an OBT 2 scanner, with a discount if I buy it in 24 hours, or use the special discount code only available in this email. The they’d get a much better result in their survey email and perhaps a few more sales. OK, I understand that that level of hyper-focussed emails is probably beyond them, but they could give a broad discount code for anything in their store and send me to their Handy Maintenance Tips page on their website. The reality is that using an AI agent they possibly could get that focussed, I don’t know for sure because I haven’t tried, but I would be surprised if it couldn’t be done. What does this story mean for you? I recon you can figure that out for yourself. But if you’re struggling (no, not you, the others) it means that the first email you send to your new subscriber or customer must be relevant to what they subscribed for or bought. Additional bonuses, even paid (with a discount), will be seen as you being helpful. That raises your profile with your subscribers and will improve the engagement with your emails. If you think that might be useful then this book will explain why it’s more than useful. “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy. Regards, |
Where the marketing is easy.
