Anyone who loves seamless & fast transportation uses Uber. For those who don’t know what Uber is, it’s a mobile application to order a cab within a tap of a button.
This week, Uber lost me as a loyal customer after promising me something they didn’t deliver.
On Monday, February 5, I received an SMS message from Uber with a 50% discount promo code; this was amazing for me because my scooter was down and I needed affordable transportation. The funny thing is, when I tried to use the promo code, it got REJECTED. I tried around five times to input the promo, assuming that I’m misspelling it. But no, it was written correctly, and it just wouldn’t work.
As a civilised citizen, I decided not to let this go, and contact Uber, with the assumption that they offered me a discount, and I’d like to use it. My first attempt was to send them a message on Facebook Messenger, expecting them to reply within an hour or so. What’s funny is that it took them 24 hrs to respond, asking me to “drop them a note via t.uber.com/contact”. It’s ok, I went with the flow, and did what they asked me to do, and here is how it went:
–Beginning of Chat–
• Me (submitting the contact us form):
Are You A Rider, Driver, Or Restaurant? : Rider
Summary Of Your Issue: The promo code is not working
Share Additional Details: Uber Lebanon sent me this SMS: U B E R: 50% off your next five trips up to USD5 each! Add promo BEY-SK3Z or click here: https://m.uber.com/ul/?action=applyPromo&promo=BEY-SK3Z. Valid for seven days. But the promo code is not working.
• Uber:
Thanks for writing in, Malek. Happy to explain.
We are sorry to inform you that your account not one of the user accounts who can enter this code.
No worries, we have more promotional codes and offers coming up soon, stay tuned to our newsroom.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any question related to this issue.
• Me:
But why did I receive an SMS message with the promo code?
• Uber:
Thanks for writing back, Malek.
Promotions are randomly sent by the marketing team, so we don’t have an access to identify a specific account to send promo codes to.
If you have any further concerns related to this issue, don’t hesitate to let us know.
• Me:
I think it’s disruptive to send someone an offer he/she can’t use. The promo codes should be carefully sent to those who can use it, and those people only.
It’s like a waiter telling a customer “we’re offering free fries and coke with any burger today” and when the customer decides to buy a burger, the waiter says “That offer is not applicable to you sir”. At that moment, the customer would be definitely upset and leave the restaurant.
That’s how you lose customers.
• Uber:
Thanks for letting us know, Malek.
We’ve reviewed the terms of this promotion and found out that it is not eligible to be redeemed on your account.
No worries, we have more promotional codes and offers coming up soon, stay tuned to our newsroom.
Thank you for your understanding.
–End of Chat–
In short, rather than sending an offer you CAN buy, Uber just sends offers to RANDOM people in their database. (not personalizing their messages to their customers)
From an inbound marketing perspective, the SMS approach to sending such offers to random people in the database is literally called “SPAM”. In order not to spam people, the following tools exist:
- CRM
- Smart lists
- Automated Workflows
- Lead Score
and more…
I’m sure Uber as a unicorn knows about these. So I’m suggesting they start using them more efficiently so that I (as an Uber customer) would fall in the right list, get the right SMS, use the right promo, get my ride, be happy and refer Uber to a friend.
Uber, if you need any assistance with these tools, I’d love to help you out. Two of the best systems I know that have these tools are Vbout and HubSpot. 🙂
However, at the moment, I can’t refer your services to a friend, because honestly, you lost me as a loyal customer. Try not to lose others before you run out of business, and that’s my tip for you today.
Cheers 🙂
