Sales Promotion: Some cheap tactics played by big business houses

Recently I came across two sales promotion tactics that I felt highly irritating and I want to share them with you. One was played by ICICI Bank India and the other, by Google India. Both are big names in business but their approach displayed their smallness when it comes to selling.

First the ICICI Bank episode.

A couple of months back, when I had to undertake an on-line credit card transaction through the Internet, I was asked to enter my 6 digit PIN number at the Bank site and when I entered it, a message flashed that the PIN number was incorrect and I was asked to contact ICICI Phone banking for remedy. I was quite sure that the number entered by me was correct. I logged out, logged in again and retried but to no avail.

Then I contacted ICICI Bank’s tele-support and when I complained about the problem, the response, surprisingly was very casual. While I was expecting some probing questions to verify my identity, the phone banking support staff was cool to say, “No problem Sir; I shall reset the pin number and you will then be able to access the account in the next few minutes. While this is being arranged, will you please spare a few minutes to know about a new Insurance scheme we are offering to our credit card holders?...” The person started a blah-blah about some annual fee to be paid as an insurance premium for the credit card and the scheme will offer some great benefits etc .

The casualness of the response about the PIN security and the eagerness in the sales promotion talk immediately flashed some lights inside me. It appeared to be near certain to me that the bank had intentionally blocked the access to the password entry and the very purpose was to force the customer to come to tele-banking support only to hear the sales promotion talk on the insurance scheme!

I felt a surge of anger inside me when I hung up the phone. While I had no intention to buy their new insurance scheme in any case, I would be the last person to fall into buying such promotions, when I obviously felt the dirty tactic they played on me.

The second one is from Google, India.

I received an attractive mailer from them informing of Rs.2000.- (equivalent to about $43) free Adword advertisement space being offered to me to promote my business. The mailer contained a “free Rs.2000.- voucher with a unique coupon code”. It said “Rs.2000 for you. For free”. “You advertise without risk”. The attached leaflet gave 7-step instructions on how to register, how to redeem the voucher and start Adword advertising.

The letter and the leaflet did not mention anywhere anything about any hidden fees or joining fees. Everything looked as though the whole thing is given free to a potential new customer to tryout Google Adsense with no cost to learn the benefits so that paid membership can become a reality after the trial period.

But when I turned the covering letter over-leaf, there was the Coupon Number. Just by the side of it, there was a printed paragraph containing Terms and conditions, in a very, very fine print, in grey color, readable best by using a magnifying glass. And there was the truth hidden. “Advertisers with self-managed signup accounts are subject to a Rs.250.- account activation fee. Prepay customers must deposit Rs. 500 into their account for activation”.

See how even massive organizations like Google cannot do a transparent and honest sales promotion. What prevents them from saying clearly in their covering letter or in the printed leaflet something like “Pay Rs.250 and join us; pay Rs. 500 and activate your account; You will then enjoy a full Rs.2000 worth of free advertising space at our Google Adsense activated web-pages”?

A thinking of over-smartness. Lack of good, open and decent business and sales practices. A cheap attempt to hoodwink people to open their “free” account and then corner them to pay the joining fees.

Perhaps some high handed and over-smart marketing gurus would have been behind such campaigns both at ICICI Bank and at Google Adword program. But they know very little about the need for fundamental business decency and ethics which only can elevate the company’s prestige and respectability in the eyes of the public.