Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Stop these "rubbish promotions"

I was outside the Fairprice supermarket in Toa Payoh. A customer was talking to the OCBC staff who was registering new customers for the OCBC Plus credit card. This card allows the customers to enjoy rebates for purchases at Fairprice.

Customer - I want to ask about the 300 Link points that I am entitled when I join as a member. Where is the 300 points?
OCBC - You have to ask Fairprice.
Customer - are you from Fairprice?
OCBC - No, I am from OCBC.
Customer - I have been receiving SMS from Fairprice about this promotion. I asked the staff in the supermarket, and they asked me to ask you about it. Now, you asked me to ask them. I have been experiencing this problem several times on my purchases.
OCBC - But there are terms and conditions. You have to make a purchase of $40 to qualify for the bonus.
Customer - I have receipt to show that I quality.
OCBC - From my laptop, I see that there is no such promotion.
Customer - Here is the SMS message on my mobile phone about this promotion. I keep receiving it.

The customer was obviously angry about this matter. He asked his wife to come and show the receipt.

Here is my take. We waste a lot of time on these "nonsense promotions". It creates a lot of problem for the front line staff. The "terms and conditions" do not help. They are usually quite confusing. They describe what can and cannot be counted to qualify. It is not worth while for the customer to waste this time. How much is 300 Link points worth? I don't know if it is 3 cents or 30 cents or $3.

I get all of these "rubbish promotions". I ignore the points given by the Telcos, and by the credit cards. When I enquire about what they are worth, they are usually useless, just a few cents of dollar. I will not describe them as "peanuts" which are actually worth $600,000.

Over the past 40 years, I hardly use the points from my airline travel or credit card. I have redeem them a few times, but found that they are really not worth the time.

I hope that our businesses stop these "rubbish promotions" and offer a 1% or 2% cash discount. They should save the money in engaging the promotion manager and having staff to manage an expense "rewards program".

https://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=2196


1 comment:

  1. When we have leaders who spew rubbish, this is the kind of SGP we would get. It becomes a norm.

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