Without wanting to cause offence, blow this topic out of proportion or be accused of turning this post into some brilliant marketing campaign can I put my point across with some explanations?
Please accept my apologies in advance if this rambles on or seems to be a cheap effort at advertising, only I feel that I should have the opportunity to explain and justify some of the points raised.
OPJ and Tony are existing, repeat customers and the gesture made to them wasn’t purely done as ‘marketing’ - both have already praised our service and blades before receiving the free blade or offers of!
It was a genuine gesture to existing customers that will hopefully then continue to be repeat customers and as any business knows a happy customer will hopefully recommend your services and can help increase business and equally so an unhappy customer can have a detrimental effect on business – thankfully most people that use us are happy.
I didn’t actually know that OPJ was a forum member at the time.
I have learnt a fantastic amount from people on this forum and I’m very grateful for the repeat business that we get but I don’t just do this for members of this forum – most the time when an enquiry is made then I have no idea if the person is a member of the forum or not. I like to think that we treat all of our customers the same whether they are a member of a forum or not.
If any blade breaks on the weld then we offer to re-weld the blade free of charge and if a customer is not happy with a blade for any reason then we offer to replace it or give a refund – again this is not some marketing ploy it’s about being fair, making sure that your customers are happy and hopefully offering a service that others don’t and it’s certainly not a ‘cheap’ marketing ploy – it’s about building up a happy customer base to ensure that we remain in business and are able to offer a service that I would want to use if I was a customer.
OPJ had problems tensioning a wide blade on his machine and wanted to know if the blade was slightly shorter would it help with the tension.
I could have sold him another blade slightly shorter but offered to cut and re-weld his existing blade free of charge - it's called customer care and trying to be helpful. Later on OPJ wasn't sure what blade would be best for some cutting that he was doing so I offered to send him a few different blades to try and the ones that were no good he was going to return and any that worked would have been paid for - again it's not wanting to sell a blade just for the sake of a sale but trying to make sure that an existing customer is buying a blade that they are happy with and is suitable for the cutting that they are doing. And as mentioned - I didn't know that OPJ was a forum member at the time.
Tony is actually doing me a great favour. M42 blades are not new but the tooth shape and style that Tony is using is new in M42 and the feedback from Tony (and others who have had the same blade) is worth more than the cost of a blade - this blade is imported from America so we need to know if the blade is any good before importing more. And yes if Tony is pleased with the blade then hopefully he will recommend the blade and us so I guess it is a form of marketing but this wasn’t the intention when the blade was sent to Tony – again Tony is an existing customer and is doing me a favour by using the blade and giving me invaluable feedback on the performance of the blade.
This blade went out free to a number of people for feedback and only one was a member of this forum – if this was a deliberate attempt at marketing through the forum then I would have sent it to more than 1 forum member.
I’m sorry if it’s thought that the gestures that we make are purely for marketing but this is not the case, we do genuinely want to offer a service that stands out from others. This alone will not make us a success – the product and price is just as if not more important than any marketing.
I wish that I was as good at marketing as Neil has suggested as then maybe I could follow Gill's advice and apply for a job with Coca Cola – I quite fancy being a CEO
Ian
