The trouble with those voucher deals around Canberra.

Howaboutthat said :

I guess he is struggling to get work (not surprising) and showed his frustration in my 15 minute session.

Was your session 15 minutes because you cut it short, or because that’s what you’d signed up to? If you’d cut it short, how long was the session supposed to be?

fromthecapital said :

These vouchers can be good for restuarants. I think they need to approach it as a marketing exercise to try and attract repeat business. Some however dont understand customer service. A little cafe in braddon comes to mind.

Aside from the issue of customer service, I think the problem with using these vouchers to try to drum up repeat business, is that the customers attracted to these discounts have already purchased their next voucher for a different restaurant offering a bargain. For the business owner, the whole concept is flawed – ‘lets attract a heap of bargain hunters by selling vouchers through a web site that will soon afterwards sell vouchers for another restaurant, but hope that we’re good enough to convince our bargain hunters to come back again’.

Businesses like restaurants have fixed costs as well – from the food you’re eating, to the rent on the room you’re sitting in, opening their doors costs money. Also remember that the restaurant isn’t getting anywhere near what you paid for the voucher. They may be lucky to get any more than half what you paid.

So the bottom line is if they break even on the visit, they can probably consider themselves lucky, and if anyone that bought a voucher ever comes back to pay full price for a meal they can consider themselves even luckier. I just don’t see how marketing to people who are actively trying to grab a bargain can end up being successful for any small business.

Howaboutthat said :

We’ve also been enjoying a number of these L S vouchers. We’ve been to a number of great restaurants and overnight accommodation. I thought I’d try something different – I paid $50 for a recent offer ‘One-on-one personal and professional development consultation’ offered by a guy called M. It was valued at $165. Oh geez! Did I regret taking this one up!

The guy didn’t smile, was distant and abrupt.

Well that all sounds pretty lame. I wonder if the “What’s a public servant?” wisecrack indicates that he has issues with public servants in general. Or perhaps, as a psychological mastermind he was a little ticked off by your non-cooperation with the date of birth.

Whatever the case may it all sounds a bit odd for a guy offering counselling services to carry on like that. I reckon the advice from other posters about sticking to goods rather than services with these discount gigs sounds like a good idea.

devils_advocate said :

qbngeek said :

I should also add, that with things like car servicing, I firmly believe that you get what you pay for. IF you only pay $89 for a full service, only expect it to be worth $89.

I personally would not gamble $60k worth of car on a $300 saving.

I wouldn’t gamble $60k worth of car by getting someone other than myself to work on it.

I wouldn’t gamble $6k worth of car by getting myself to work on it (or indeed 10x that amount if I ever get a car worth $60k)

These vouchers can be good for restuarants. I think they need to approach it as a marketing exercise to try and attract repeat business. Some however dont understand customer service. A little cafe in braddon comes to mind.

However, as a consultancy service and particularly ‘soft’ services, any opportunity to promote your business needs to be grasped with both hands.

Howaboutthat self-selected as someone who is interested in said consultancy and if “M” was marketing savvy he would have seen that as an opportunity to market through displaying professional competency. The voucher discount over what he normally charges is cheap for a pre-qualified customer.

Of course, he might be so busy that he doesn’t need any more customers (very unlikely) or he was just having a bad day – whatever the reason the outcome is unfortunate for his business. The one excuse that couldn’t be made is that he has had too many of these vouchers come in, after-all that’s the measure of success of any advertising.

qbngeek said :

I should also add, that with things like car servicing, I firmly believe that you get what you pay for. IF you only pay $89 for a full service, only expect it to be worth $89.

I personally would not gamble $60k worth of car on a $300 saving.

I wouldn’t gamble $60k worth of car by getting someone other than myself to work on it.

shirty_bear said :

I’ve used a bunch of these discount vouchers and have concluded that they are good for products (restaurants, jewellery, housewares) but an absolute no-go for services. I have bought two (carpet cleaning and pest spraying) and had to get both refunded because the provider would not provide. My suspicion is that it boils down to the people offering the services being mislead by the deal-broker people; when it comes time to do the work, they realise they’ll be flat out for months for next to no money … at which point they turn off the phone.

I would say that it’s less to do with the voucher people and more to do with the service providers completely failing to do their research on what they’re signing up for.

They think they’re getting a whole lot of marketing for a cheap price but then they don’t want to fulfill their part of the deal when it comes to actually providing the services.
Plus, I think some of them seem to be small and struggling businesses anyway and this can tip them over the edge.

Howaboutthat said :

We’ve also been enjoying a number of these L S vouchers. We’ve been to a number of great restaurants and overnight accommodation. I thought I’d try something different – I paid $50 for a recent offer ‘One-on-one personal and professional development consultation’ offered by a guy called M. It was valued at $165. Oh geez! Did I regret taking this one up!

I would suggest this says more about the business of “personal and professional development consultation” than anything else. It’s a real WTF for me.

I’ve used a bunch of these discount vouchers and have concluded that they are good for products (restaurants, jewellery, housewares) but an absolute no-go for services. I have bought two (carpet cleaning and pest spraying) and had to get both refunded because the provider would not provide. My suspicion is that it boils down to the people offering the services being mislead by the deal-broker people; when it comes time to do the work, they realise they’ll be flat out for months for next to no money … at which point they turn off the phone.

How to turn a potential customer and proponent into bad publicity 101

We’ve also been enjoying a number of these L S vouchers. We’ve been to a number of great restaurants and overnight accommodation. I thought I’d try something different – I paid $50 for a recent offer ‘One-on-one personal and professional development consultation’ offered by a guy called M. It was valued at $165. Oh geez! Did I regret taking this one up!

The guy didn’t smile, was distant and abrupt. There was no effort at building any rapport. He seemed to be in a bad mood which became most clearly evident when he noticed that I didn’t put my full date of birth down on my details sheet. He tersely asked for it and I said I keep my dob private on the whole but I was happy to give him the year. Nil response. He then asked rudely ‘ What’s a public servant? What does that mean??’. It was quickly developing into a Monty Python sketch! He then asked questions which I had already provided answers to on the sheet. I said I was interested in starting a business and wanted to talk that through, maybe online. He said he can’t help me with that. I needed a business development coach. And didn’t I check his website on what he offers??’. I said I hadn’t – he said he provided the link in the fine print on the voucher (I’m still looking for it – not there). This guy clearly did not want to help me in any way.

I said that’s ok – I’m sure there is something we could discuss in the time we had remaining such as the hesitations I had around setting up a business. He was so disinterested that I ended up sayinhg that I didn’t think this was going anywhere. He offered me a refund which I accepted and left. However I found out from Living Social that he was in no position to offer me that. It has been a convoluted process trying to get a refund. After numerous phone calls (including two with the lovely M), I’m still not sure what’s the outcome is there.

I don’t know how this guy got a degree in counselling (though it says a Degree in Science on his letterhead..). He was unprofessional and astoundingly rude. I guess he is struggling to get work (not surprising) and showed his frustration in my 15 minute session. M really needs some professional development himself. Ironic….