Well since you asked…

I had an email through last weekend from a sports drink company asking me to fill out a questionnaire. They were interested to know why, despite having registered an interest, I hadn’t gone on to order their product.

I remember the company well. I was preparing to take part in the Ironman Austria triathlon last year, and was looking to secure an appropriate energy drink for the race (this isn’t actually as easy to do as it might sound as it can be difficult to find products that meet your nutritional requirements over a long endurance event in hot conditions without leaving you rather nauseous). Anyway, the company was new on the scene but was attracting a lot of attention. From a marketing stand point they were doing everything right. They had gained the support from some of the key thought leaders in the sport, and were getting rave reviews in many of the influential forums. This caught my attention and I decided to test the product out. I went to on-line ordering on their web-site, but it wouldn’t let me put in a non-US address, and I had to abandon the order. I then decided to call the company, but they didn’t provide contact details on their web site. I tried the contact email. No response. I tried again. No response. I even found the CEO’s email address, I dropped him a line. No response. I gave up and bought something else.

So why hadn’t I ordered their product? I looked at the available answers on the questionnaire. None seemed to fit my predicament – ‘I really really wanted to but you just wouldn’t take my order’. I sent them a polite explanatory email instead. This time they responded. Twelve months late but they responded.

The moral of the story – there are certain basics (like making is reasonably easy for customers to place orders or communicate) that you just have to get right. I make this obvious point because it doesn’t matter how clever you get with the strategies and technologies you deploy, if the fundamentals don’t back it up, it’s going to be real hard to make them a success.

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