New SMS Objection

This came up in another thread and I will repeat the answer I gave there. Why should he feel cheated when the coupon did its job? Most restaurants sending out SMS text coupons are doing it to get people in the door on a slow night. If someone gets the coupon and then forwards it on to all his friends rather than getting 1 or 2 people in, now you'll get 10 people in. In other words the coupon did it's job. So what if he took a slight loss on extra people getting free dessert or a free drink or whatever the coupon is for? Ultimately the owner is going to gain a lot more by having those extra people, who wouldn't have come in otherwise without their employee friend giving them the discount.

While I suppose you could create a coupon with a barcode to be displayed on a mobile website, SMS messsages are text messages, so there's no easy way to track them that I'm aware of.

I'm not actively promoting SMS services though so maybe someone who's in the trenches can share some details.

That's should be easy. Make them resubscribe to your SMS system again when requesting a discount, using their mobile phone. If they are already on the list, it will say so, if they are not, it will add them to your SMS list... then give them a discount ;-)

The purpose to give discounts is to either gain a customer or get them back in to buy something again. As long as you keep building your list, you win!


Thomas

PS. Just to make it clear. Your SMS system will send a message back to your customer's phone, so you can see the response from your system: "you're already subscribed" or "thank for subscribing" :-)

All Great answers...but the winner is - SirThomas by a nose!.... All bets are covered!


(But this owner does seem a bit paranoid about his staff...Eh?)

I agree Sir Thomas has a clever solution indeed. I would tell the restaurant owner that.

Still, I stand by my initial comment. Even if the people are coming in because of staff members giving them the coupon discount, I still believe that the whole idea behind the coupon is working. Yes, obviously it would be better to have them on the list, but the whole purpose of having people on this list is to get customers in the door. Even if the coupon costs them a little profit it's still better than having someone not come in at all-- in other words, any check, even a discounted one, is better than no check at all. If they weren't getting a discount from their staff friends, they wouldn't come in and the owner wouldn't be getting any money out of them. At least when they get the discount the owner is still making money on the final bill.

And really if the owner is that paranoid about his staff, he probably needs a new one.

Placing a bit of a twist on Sir Thomas' idea ... place a table tent with a qrcode at the register. Ask every customer scan it to receive 10% discount on their tab. Takes care of the problem easily.

If I owned a restaurant, I would LOVE IT if my customers shared my coupons with others! Who cares if they are not a subscriber??

This just means one of your subscribers is GIVING you FREE VIRAL ADVERTISING...

Your client is looking at it ALL WRONG.

I think the issue, Jason, is that the owner is concerned that the employees will be handing out the discount to whomever they feel like, whether or not they had the coupon or are on the list.

That being said, I don't see it being a big deal. If he is really adamant about this, you could point out that it shouldn't be hard to figure out which employees are doing it - or stop it pretty much cold by adding a "discount if you subscribe" section straight to the menu. Bear in mind though that whether or not they actually "deserve" the discount, perception is everything, and being given the discount will still encourage them to come back and check you out online.

Our SMS platform links a mobile coupon to the text message in an "electronic wallet". We can set it up so the customer can only redeem 1 time or multiple times depending on our clients preference. If they are giving away a free dessert that is $5 on the menu but only costs $1 wouldn't you want people to use it more than once and share with as many friends and family as possible? We sure do! Thats why we integrated the mobile coupons with Facebook to spread them in a viral nature. We also provide reports to our clients showing coupons "viewed" as well as "redeemed" for tracking purposes. In addition we can also add barcodes if the client does have a POS scanner or smart phone to collect additional data like time of sale and other items purchased. I think you need to educate this restaurant owner a bit and he has bigger problems if he can't trust his employees that have full access to the cash register.

Good Luck,
Zenyatta

Thanks to the OP for bringing this objection to the forum, although it should be an easy objection to overcome it's always nice to be prepared for these kind of questions...especially when I have a few meetings next week for SMS services. =)

I also use a real life case study with my clients...I actually have a few SMS coupons saved on my smart phone and will show them one from a local convenience mart that is giving away a $.25 pack of gum. I forwarded the text message to my friends and when we we all went in to redeem it, we subsequently left with a cold 12 pack of bee...I mean soda...and plenty of food. It really works.

This owner has more issues to deal with than just marketing. He is worried about his own employees "stealing" from him.

I would fire that restaurant as a client and move along to someone who has a better business model and wants to focus on their marketing plan with you rather than deal with internal issues.

You are fighting an uphill battle, and these types of clients will be the 1st to stop making their monthly payments to you anyways.

@ Zenyatta - the "mobile wallet" idea is a great idea to get return value from your customers coupon campaign - those are some very flexible options you have there...it could be one or many happy returns for the customer..

I've owned restaurants (only one owned currently) and the truth is, there is NO SYSTEM on the planet that will prevent cheating or stealing if that is the desired goal of a smart employee. While systems to make it more difficult (coupon codes, one-time use, manager verification, etc) will cut down on this type of thing, the owner and SMS consultant need to be smart about what discounts to offer and when. The margins in restaurants are thin, so when I hear SMS "gurus" advocating that any discount that gets people to use it is a good discount...well, that's just naive. You can discount your way right out of business...as some former business owners have found chasing too many Groupon-type models. Your SMS offers need to be relevant and exclusive. If the same offer is on Facebook, why do I need to allow you to text me offers at all- the customer has all the power in SMS marketing and if you just blast discounts indiscriminately, your opt out rates will rise. If the discount is such that the restaurant owner is worried about too many uses, then the offer isn't well designed. Anyone can have short-term success driving results for a restaurant, or any other business, with random discounts, but longterm success depends upon smart marketing designed to build relationships with customers.

For anyone that really wants to know about the SMS business follow EatDrinkText and Sir Thomas' posts in this thread. NO you don't need a fancy SMS coupon spitting platform and if you put them on facebook to go viral without checking to see if the redeemer is on you list then you really don't need to be in business making money.

Make the redeemer of the coupon prove they are on your list. Exclusivity is what VIP clubs are about. All of my clients use Sir Thomas' method which I have coached them on from day 1 and we have no problems. If you suspect a waiter or waitress that is giving discounts without a valid coupon.... simple, either give them the crappiest station to wait on or fire them.

Just want to say thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. There were many good ideas presented on how to handle this objection, and I hope others who provide SMS services to their clients will find value in the ideas here.

An update on my SMS prospect who originally presented this objection: His partners shut him down on spending more advertising money until January. He asked me to call him back then. Not sure if I will, as I tend to agree with VegasGreg's post above.

I've got plenty of others ready to grow their business now, and I just don't need the customer service hassle.

Thanks again to all!