The wrath of mothers as consumers

I was just talking to my co-worker about a problem she’s having with Bank of America. They refuse to refund money (over $100) to her account from charges due to overdrawing, although the bank was the party at fault since they transferred money from her account without being asked to.

Hearing her talk on the phone and get more and more frustrated with the bank representative who obviously does not know how to deliver good customer service (which leads to bad word-of-mouth like this blog post), made me suggest something to my friend—you should have my mom call that bank.

It’s true. My mom has a way of getting companies/institutions to right their mistakes and treat you as you should be treated. I always know if I’m in too deep with horrible customer care representatives that all it will take is a phone call and I will get some serious reinforcement on my side.

For example, last year I was a senior at Ithaca College, about to start my final semester at the school that I had paid many thousands of dollars to already, yet I found myself at odds talking to a Financial Aid representative about my financial aid package. Apparently I was not getting a lot of money that I was supposed to get. And this was not going to bode well (i.e. I was not going to have any money to buy food). So I enlisted my mom for help. Who knows if it is the natural motherly instinct to stand up for her child, or just another natural instinct she possesses – being a fierce knowledgeable customer - but my mom got the job done.

In no less than an hour I received a call from my mother. During this time, she had not only called the Financial Aid Office, but also gotten on the phone with Larry Chambers (the head honcho of the Office who no one ever would think really existed if he didn’t sign all fancy FinAid communications from the college), and received both an apology and a refund of the monies owed to us. I don’t know what was said, but I was glad I was not on Larry’s end of the phone call. And one thing was for sure, I was glad I had my mom on my side.

It’s true, my mom knows how to get your way as a consumer, which is a great trait to have. She told me of a time at the Bon-Ton when they never would take her coupons and she said to the sales lady, “They always send me these coupons in the mail, but never let me use them.” Boom. The lady let her use it. Even though she wasn’t supposed to.

I was at a Yankees game about a month ago that was rained out…or so I thought when I left the stadium. They ended up playing after a 2-hour rain delay. Their policy is that you won’t get your money back if you leave and then the game is actually played. My mom told me to write an email to the Yankees anyways and explain the situation, because “Who knows? Maybe they’ll give you something. Can’t hurt to try.” I’m still waiting on a response from the Yanks, but we’ll see what happens.

Anyways, to draw a point from this—yes, my mom is great at getting her way as a consumer. But this is also a bigger lesson in marketing, and something I just read about in the great book The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. Companies realize that much of what they sell is based on word-of-mouth. A restaurant can have great food and service, but still be empty because no one knows about it. People need to pass the word on in order for something to catch on, people Gladwell refers to as “connectors.” And companies also know that if these connectors are upset about how a company treats them, they are just as likely to pass on negative word-of-mouth to their friends and families. This puts us as consumers in a pretty good spot.

Maybe we should all act a little more like my mom. Because after all, if you take a second to let a company know how you really feel, maybe you’ll get something great out of it. In the great words of my mother, it “can’t hurt to try.”