Are you fed up with misleading advertising?

I’m always up for a good offer, but when I am over-promissed and under-delevered, I feel pretty negative towards the supplier.

I’m off on my annual hols shortly, so when I received an e-mail from Gatwick Parking offering me ‘Save up to 65% off Official Gatwick Parking” plus “an Extra 10% off with Code JUL13A” I went straight to their website to book.

What did I actually get? Well, before I used the promo code, I was offered the price of £113. Afterwards, the price was £102, so I got 9.7% off by using the code. The headline rate was described as the “Roll-up Price” and was quoted as £273. So, on the basis of this benchmark, I got a 58% discount before the Promo Code was applied.

However, when I googled ‘Gatwick Parking’ and applied the same parking dates and times, I was quoted £114. So their sales e-mail saved me £1, which is less than a 1% saving!

Okay, had I “rolled-up” on the day without booking, I may well have been charged £273, but I have been left feeling that I have been duped by some fancy “up to” offer and taken as a fool. In reality, I had got a pretty good deal, but I was left feeling disappointed.

So, what has this got to do with you and your business? Well, simply this: if you make an offer to your customers, by all means emphasise the good deal they are going to get. But before you go to press, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and consider how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of the offer. As a rule of thumb, It’s far better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way round.

Filed under: Marketing