Refer to article: Viewers turned off over plasma promise

I was quite impressed with Samsung’s promotion of offering a free LCD TV when you purchased a plasma TV > 40″. Many TV companies have since started offering similar deals, and as expected customer demand has sky rocketed. As per Samsung, more than 23,000 people have taken up these promotions, many of them solely because of the free TV offer. It seems Samsung are struggling to fulfill those orders, with some people waiting even today to get their free TV’s for purchases made in Nov/Dec 2007. There is even talk of going further with the complaints to NSW Office of Fair Trading.

I hope that will not be necessary, and Samsung get their act together quickly. Similarly, Vodafone and Optus have major problems with their mobile broadband network, particularly bandwidth and speed issues. Vodafone at one stage had massive waiting lists to get their mobile broadband modems.

This brings us to an important lesson. When you organise a marketing or promotional scheme, then you have to ensure you have adequate planning to accommodate for potentially thousands of customers. If you do not, then your company can fast lose reputation and have a negative impact on consumers. This will affect future sales. As this story highlights, communication is a major part of customer service and it seems Samsung have neglected their customers from this angle.

This post is relevant to my upcoming take on Michael’s Furniture. Stay tuned!