- I decided to take a walk back to Tesco to get the two missing items. I will update the 'shopping list' post as soon as I'm done here.
- The AA replied to my email, inviting me to phone their renewals department (and giving detailed instructions for navigating their automatic switchboard!). Once I got through and explained my concern, I was very quickly offered a 35% discount on my renewal. Given that I was really wanting a 25% discount, to match the online offering, I was more than happy with this*. (Actually, I'm now a little concerned. It is right that companies should make a reasonable profit for offering a service, and I'm not sure what their margin is. Which is really why I was going for parity with the offer for new customers, which I'm sure must be calculated to be profitable. Still, I haven't had to call them out in the last year, so I guess that was almost pure profit, so... I think that's the principle I'll adhere to: if I have to call them out, then I'll accept the renewal price as-is. If not, I'll expect them to at least match their 'new customer' discount.)
* In the same vein as yesterday's marketing note (about the 10x cost difference for new vs repeat customers), here's a note about customer service: studies have shown that if a customer meets with a problem that is then swiftly and correctly resolved, that customer will rate the overall service as being better than they would if there had been no problem at all. Presumably, the psychology is that if things go wrong, that can be put down to luck, but it is in the fixing of problems that people show their quality.
And that's part of the reason why I was always going to renew with the AA if they matched their 25% online discount. I'm aware that cheaper alternatives exist out there, and on the face of it, it makes no sense to pay more for the same service. However, the truth is that their service has always been very very good, so as a matter of principle I wasn't going to abandon that simply over money. It's just that there was another principle that was also at work - that I shouldn't pay more than a new customer, because loyalty should go both ways.
(Or, at least, that's how I justify it to myself. Perhaps I'm either a fool or am unreasonably mercenary. Feel free to let me know.)
3 comments:
I'm not surprised at all that the AA got back to you. In my experience, companies are pretty good at this stuff if you actually complain.
Also, I'm not sure that you actually owe them anything in terms of loyalty. They are a company, out to make profit. From you.
And you have seen (like every other company) that they inflate their prices by quite a fair sum over what they can "afford" to offer it to you for.
Why not just go for every discount you can? I wonder how much discount you can get on average just by phoning up, being angry, and asking to speak to a manager...?
I suspect being angry is actually counter-productive. The best way forward would seem to be to clearly state your dissatisfaction, but remain calm and relaxed. Basically, create a tone such that the guy on the other end wants to help you.
But perhaps that's just me. For reasons I've never quite worked out, people seem to like me. It might just be pity...
Well ... I really meant forceful but reasonable. But certainly erring on the side of pushy and demanding. As far as I can tell, the first line people have a price that they are "allowed" to offer you if you push, and the managers can offer bigger discounts, but you have to push to get to them.
I am being fairly mercenary, of course. The only situation where I can think that being this mercenary isn't really what you should be doing though is in the case of little local shops. If we behave in a cut-throat, cheap-as-I-can-get-it way with them then we'll all shop at ASDA and they'll go out of business. An interesting debate would be whether this actually matters. And whether it matters enough to us for us to pay more for the privilege.
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