Karen Rubin's Ramblings

For Christmas, my husband gave me a beautiful crimson cashmere sweater from Ann Taylor, a favorite store of mine. I was thrilled with the gift, but it was a little tight and so I wanted to try on one size bigger and see which one fit better. 

 I checked out the return policy on the back of the receipt, and it said something along the lines of, 

 "Ann Taylor will accept your return or exchange of unworn, unwashed merchandise. We will credit you for returns accompanied by an original receipt either in the original form of payment or as a merchandise exchange. Final Sale items may not be returned or exchanged."

This all sounded fine to me. There wasn't a 60 or 90 day policy so I didn't rush about heading into the store. January & February happened, and the sweater sat on my dresser as Jared and I spent the weekends in New Hampshire and Washington DC with family.  

 Then last weekend, we were home, we had nothing to do, so I grabbed the sweater and receipt and headed to the store. When I got there, I went to the counter to see about the exchange and learned two things. 

 1. Ann Taylor does not except exchanges or returns of items purchased on the website in their actual stores. 

2. If you return an item more than 60 days after purchase, they will only refund you the current selling price. 

 Now, neither of these rules is crazy. The problem is that Ann Taylor wasn't transparent about the rules on the receipt. The return policy that I checked out the day I got the sweater indicated that I could head to the store and made no mention of a time limitation. I even checked it a couple of times over the month of January to make sure I wasn't going to run into a problem.

 Is this the end of the world? No. But, it has ultimately resulted in a waste of my time and loss of money, as the sweater is now selling for 50% less than my husband bought it for. That is NOT a good customer experience, and it's enough to ensure that I don't buy from Ann Taylor any longer.

If Ann Taylor had been completely transparent, put the full details of their return policy on the receipt and made it easy for me to understand what the restrictions were, I would have happily sent the sweater back in December and would still today be a happy Ann Taylor customer.  Instead, I won't be shopping there any longer.  

Make sure you are transparent with your customers. It goes a lot further and things that might seem bad end up not being as big of a deal.  

I know I am a couple days behind on this one, but did you hear that ESPN has mandated that their talent cannot post anything online about sports? 

According to CNet the memo states, 

 "Personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted...If ESPN.com opts not to post sports related social media content created by ESPN talent, you are not permitted to report, speculate, discuss or give any opinions on sports related topics or personalities on your personal platforms(.)" 

 I am actually surprised by this one. ESPN always has seemed so on top of it. Based on nothing but my own recollections, I feel like they were one of the first sites to really leverage online video. From Ric Bucher to the guys at PTI, their newscasters have also been all over social media. Are they just going to stop?

ESPN says "they want to be smarter about how we do it," but here is some free advice for them, this is not the smart way!  

*Thanks to Brad for the story! 

The small text reads "Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce."

 Do you think this goes too far?  Does it make you want to rush down to Burger King? 

This weekend I was watching some TV with my husband and saw a commercial for the new fragrance line from Polo Ralph Lauren. We were both struck because the commercial showed a life style that not many get the opportunity to live, but also was completely out of touch with what is going on in today's economy. 

Polo matches,  

jeep rides,  

yachts,  

 sailboats, 

 and sports cars. 

 As a marketer you have to constantly be aware of your target market. I expect Ralph Lauren is trying to appeal to people who WANT to live this life-style. I'm just not sure with an unemployment rate of 9.1% in May 2009 this is the best way to go about doing so.

On a side note, I tried to find a video of the ad to include with this post and was unsuccessful. You can view it on the Ralph Lauren site here, or on Facebook here.  Props the them for getting it on Facebook, but where is the embeddable version on YouTube??

Life around my home has been very interesting the last couple months. It started with a busted valve leaking water all over our brand new bamboo floors and ended with a meeting between the back of our car and pole in our garage this past weekend. Based on my experiences dealing with these two issues, I feel I can confidently say I have identified 3 industries that need to learn more about inbound marketing.

 #1 - Insurance Companies

 I have been dealing with both my homeowners insurance company and my auto insurance company. While customer service at both has been acceptable (and even on the good side) it has often required long waits on the phone before I can talk to a human. This is a BAD experience for me. The questions asked by both have are clearly form questions asked to everyone reporting a claim, why can't I report my claim online and have someone call me? 

The reason is that the sites of both insurance companies are relatively pitiful brochure websites. Sure I can find the number to report a claim and I can do a zip code look up to find and agent, but what if I want to find information about what the process is for fixing my crunched car or damp floor?

If I were an insurance company I would recognize that most people have lots of questions when filing a claim. How will this affect the cost of my insurance? How do I pay the auto body shop for the work? Can I bring in my own contractors to fix the floor? Is this accident going to add points to my license?

As an insurance company I would make sure getting the answer to those questions was not only easy for my customers, but didn't require 10 minutes of hold music or 3 phone transfers. It could be handled through a forum, an FAQ page or even a blog about how to get issues resolved quickly and easily.

#2 - Auto body Shops

I know how to drive a car, fill it with gas, add windshield washer fluid and oil and that is about it. I am pretty much a novice when it comes to all things car and don't feel that I can begin to judge an auto body shop in any way. So how am I going to go about picking which one to take my car to?

First stop for me is Yelp. There aren't an excessive number of reviews on auto body shops in the area, but there are enough. The one that catches my eye is A Plus Auto body. It's in Somerville, it has 5 stars and 8 reviews, my next stop is their website to see what information I can find. This is what I get, 

Yes, that is a photo of a burning car, and that's the whole website! While I understand the impact, it doesn't fill me with confidence. I finally ended up heading back to the website of the dealer were we bought the car and checking out their collision center. I liked the people when we bought the car and while their website doesn't give me all the information I need, at least it doesn't have photos of burning cars!

If I were an auto body shop, I would make sure I had a fantastic website that inspired confidence. It would include

• before and after photos of jobs I had done,
• customer testimonials,
  
• answers to questions about how to get my car fixed and how long to expect it to take,
  
• information I would need on hand when bringing my car in,
  
• questions I should ask before it gets fixed,
• and tips on dealing with the insurance company after an accident.

#3 - Contractors

The deal for contractors is much the same as the auto body industry. I don't know much about fixing my damaged floor, but I know I want someone I can trust who does good work. I got lucky in this regard because the developers of our building were able to suggest contractors who are fantastic. After they recommended them, I checked out their site and was amazed to see a decent, informative site pulled together with testimonials and referrals. 

The only things I would do differently is get more exposure on Yelp (since that is where I looked first) and add a blog to help answer questions about work done on your home and what to expect. As a first time homeowner having work done for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. It would have been nice to get some more information from them directly through a blog. 

Bottom line for all three industries is they need more of an online presence that is helpful to their customer base. I have spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get information and on the internet doing research. It's been hard to find the information I needed and if a company within these industries that took the lead in being open, transparent and informative online, they would have my business in a heartbeat.