Before I continue, let me preface by saying that it is not normally in my character to criticize any restaurant, local or otherwise, but Wing Stop rubbed me the wrong way today with their bait & switch advertising. I should also say that I did not eat their food, so this rant is entirely based upon a marketing campaign that went horribly wrong...
Friday afternoon, I go out to my car and find a flier under my windshield wiper. Now I'm not against fliers under my windshield wiper; I simply find them to be another form of junk mail. Actually, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find that the flier contained a couple of nice coupons so I decided to keep it on my desk for the following week. You see, I'm all about the wings... I love wings! I wish chickens were born with a few extra sets of wings so they'd be more readily available... Back on track though, I held on to the flier because I fully intended to stop in sometime this week (like today) and try them out. The two coupons promised "One Free Side with Any Wing Purchase" and "Five Free Boneless Wings with the Purchase of Any Regular Wing Order." Perfect, I could order a ten pack of wings, get a side and five bonus wings to boot. Heck, if they had good wings, I might even blog about how great they were! But no... when I placed my order, I was told that the coupon expired on Sunday. WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THAT?!!! Litter an entire office parking lot with junk mail that turns out to be useless?!! Really?!! What's even better is when I told the person "Never Mind, I'll cancel my order", he nonchalantly said "Whatever Dude..."
Let's just break this down and look at this from a marketing view:
- Fliers under Windshield Wipers - I'm not against this type of guerilla marketing, but a lot of people resent some unknown person(s) molesting their cars. Any number of things could happen from a sensitive alarm going off and draining their battery, a hot windshield could crack, paint could get scratched by a careless canvaser and of course, it becomes the responsibility of the automobile owner to discard of the flier. Never a great idea, but in some cases it does work. Not smart...
- Targeting Business Complexes on Friday - What kind of brilliant minds decide to promote lunches to a business complex... at the end of the week? FYI Wing Stop: People go home during the weekend. Why not try hitting the complex on Monday when people are thinking about what they're going to have for lunch on Wednesday? Not smart...
- Set Realistic Expiration Dates People! - So you went to all that trouble of killing all those trees, you paid some minimum wage guy to manhandle our cars, you did so KNOWING that the complex was going to be a ghost town during the weekend and yet you printed the expiration date as being Sunday?! What's even the point? Seriously... Typically, a published coupon has a shelf-life of at least a month; otherwise it's better to just run a radio or online promotion. All you've done here is paid for printing that netted you zero results. I'm willing to bet that when you crunch the numbers, the coupons amounted for nothing sales-wise. Not smart...
- Not Honoring Coupons Expired by Less Than One Week - I know, I know... Coupons and promotions can be ended at any time by the distributors discretion, but this type of marketing is a form of "bait & switch" that really pisses people off. You distributed these with the intent to get people inside your door and then you tell them that they can't use the coupon? I guess you figure that once they order, they feel obligated to stay and pay... not me though. I really did want to try your wings, but I resent the fact that you used this type of "scheme" to get me in the door. Yes, I cancelled my order when I found out I wouldn't be getting the five free wings. I know it sounds like I'm cheap and petty but... what you didn't realize was this was my way of letting you know that if you only had honored my coupon, you may have developed a loyal customer. Instead, you sarcastically mumble "Whatever Dude..." Well that cinched it! YOU don't WANT my business! Hey "Whatever Dude..." guy, fuck you. I complained about you to your corporate website, posted about your rudeness to your company's social media pages, blogged about it on pretty much all of my blogs and I'm planning to let as many people as possible know just how much you "care" about your customers. Don't ever mess with a Social Media Director / Blogger. Not smart...
Okay, I'm done ranting. In a nutshell, great things are happening for Chef Delaney, life is great, Wing Stop is bad and I'll try to talk at the Cutting Board in a few days about Chinese People dyeing their dogs to look like circus animals or something like that. In the meantime, feel free to chat at me on Facebook or check out my newest blog, "Fresno Unchained" on Valley411.com!
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