So where were the breakage points?
1) When they got unworkable cards that customers had to take inside and stand in line to be trimmed or entered by hand. Maybe this was an unintended “gift” breakage point… an accident? While an unscrupulous company could have ordered them this way on purpose, I believe Winn-Dixie as an upstanding company should have required them be redone and reissued, even if it was their own error. Regardless, the moment Winn-Dixie became aware the cards were sized wrong they could have at least notified their customers of the problem… instead of leaving us to find knives and scissors on our own!
2) When it became acceptable (at least in their mind) to “pass the buck” to anyone or any action they could blame, instead of taking care of their customers. The fallback on “rules” (“After all, the program states…”) is akin to “I was just doing my job.” What kind of customer service rules don’t allow reasonable decision making authority for their agents to correct $5 or $10 mistakes?
When any company, in their wisdom, are willing to take aim at a partner’s employee who — and this is my perspective as an experienced marketing and sales professional as well as a consumer — literally went above and beyond the call of duty to help their customers, that’s a huge problem. Never once did Michelle disparage Winn-Dixie or do anything other than cheerfully try to solve my problem, and all the other Winn-Dixie customers in line with the same problem (as undoubtedly she had to do countless times before and since). If only she worked for Winn-Dixie, she might have helped created a true customer service-oriented loyalty program that made customers feel like they were appreciated and wanted.
Winn-Dixie might want to consider giving gift cards or some kind of awards to the “unsung heroes” in all of their partner stations who are dealing with the added burden of handling these issues for the company.
3) Every point where anyone forgot “It’s a LOYALTY PROGRAM, stupid!”
6) And lest we forget, when the decision was made to not give “loyal” customers alternative ways to ensure their store credit was always applied. They already have your information in their system. If you don’t have your card, clerks should be able to simply punch in your phone number and give you credit on your purchase.
Understand, all of these may very well be unintended consequences. However, the math is simple: For any regional or national company, building in obstacles like these can literally mean millions of dollars they don’t have to apply to their customers’ accounts, but still get to promote the advantage of a highly-promoted “loyalty” program with free gas!
Next post, another example of how breakage can be misused in marketing.
Note: This series of posts is not meant to disparage Winn-Dixie or their parent corporation Southeastern Grocers, their people or their loyalty program or partners in any way. I’m simply relaying my personal experiences, which may be different from their average customer. Also, these represent my personal opinion as to how a well-meaning loyalty-rewards program can go awry, and serve to foster disloyalty and dissatisfaction in the process. I do not have insider information on their program, and I have not attempted to discuss these points with the company other than where indicated. When a program appears to be designed to be difficult for customers to utilize or redeem, and has multiple points where breakage can occur, I believe it’s bigger objectives (to create loyalty and increase sales) have either been intentionally or inadvertently subverted to save money through breakage.
