OK, so you’ve taken the time to research a product, comparison shop, talk to others, read blog posts, track some hashtags and then you inevitably purchase the object of your desire. You get it in your possession, begin to use it, talk to people about how great it is, perhaps you even write a blog post and tweet your love out to the world.

And then the unthinkable happens.

It stops working.

Worse than that, it’s 37 days out of warranty!

Things had been going so well you thought. The sun was shining, people were happy, this product had brought such joy to your life. And then it all stops (ok, maybe the sun still shines and people go on with their happy lives), but your life has changed – perhaps if only temporarily. It’s what happens next that sets up your thinking going forward.

What do you do about it?

Well, if you really like the product that much, I suggest that you talk to the manufacturer and explain your story. Explain to them why the product that they make is/was so important to you and how you can’t understand how, through no fault of your own, their product has ceased to work for you. Explain that you understand that it is outside of the warranty, but that it seems unfair that you are to be penalized by such a short amount of out-of-warranty time. Tell them that you really want to have a resolution to this issue that will ensure your loyalty to their brand for years to come.

In today’s age of instant broadcasting, companies who understand the power of the consumer can easily turn a potentially ugly incident like this into an evangelizing opportunity. I like to call this “Goodwill Gesture Marketing“. By doing the “right thing”, the company can transfer the negative energy of the downtrodden consumer into positive, shout-from-the-rooftops evangelism.

The ultimate “right thing” for the company to do is to offer to simply replace the defective product. If the product has been discontinued, they should offer to replace it with the latest model, even if this is a significant upgrade. They can call this a “one time gesture”. This tells the customer that they sympathize with them, appreciate their patronage and want to make the situation right, but without saying that they will do this repeatedly.

But what is the real end result??

Companies who choose this “high-road” resolution will undoubtedly gain the advantage of word-of-mouth marketing. After all, aren’t you happy to tell people that you know, twitter followers, blog readers, etc. about this feel-good resolution?  We are bombarded with negative news on a daily basis (just turn on any news channel at any time of the day), so a happy story almost seems out of the ordinary. Companies should try at all costs to avoid adding to the steady stream of bad news and take advantage of the positive power of the consumer.

What do you think? Do you have a story to share?

BTW, the inspiration for this post came from a personal experience that I just had with Panasonic over a camera that I purchased from them. I’m happy to say that they did the right thing! I’ve also had similar experiences with Apple and Sears.

Photo: AdamL212

As a web developer, online marketer, business owner or any other provider of online services, have you ever wondered why it seems that while we all do a great job (we are told anyway) of taking care of our clients’ business, we often neglect to take care of our own?

Think about it… We spend all of our days hatching up new ways to sell more of our clients’ products, improving their search engine rankings, building tools that improve the functionality of their business, implementing the latest and greatest Social Media Networking plans, all for the client. Yet how much time do we devote to thinking of our own business in the same light??

I know that it is a tough sell because after all, we are in business to sell our tools, products and services to clients in exchange for fees. This fact alone makes it difficult to justify spending time doing the same for our own business. On top of this, even finding this time can be next to impossible; business is busy, clients are requesting more and more, money is flowing in, how can you take your eye off the ball?

I know all of this because my company Idextrus has fallen victim to this issue for far too long. We have just launched our own new website for the first time in 7 years!! What have we been doing all this time? Well, we’ve been taking care of our clients problems. We have built countless online applications, admin systems, web sites, marketing systems, literally hundreds of thousands of lines of code, all without nary a check in on how the home fires are doing.

I have decided to make a conscious effort to spend time each week treating my own business the same way that I treat the business of our clients. No more “Do as I say, not as I do” excuses.

If this post resonates with you, what are you going to do about it?

Photo: jimmedia