Blog: Contacting Me

I don't post my email address to avoid picking up spam (and to protect my privacy) but if anyone wants to get in touch with me, just post a comment with a way to reach you (email) and I'll contact you.

Marketing: Baskin Robbins

I don't know if anyone else spotted the coupon for a free ice cream cone in your yahoo mailbox today: link. But when I went to claim my free cone, they wouldn't accept my coupon. They said that people had been bringing in copies of the coupon...even though mine was a perfectly valid printout from my valid Yahoo account (which I've had for several years now). It even had my own name printed on it! You'd think that marketing would've thought this through BEFORE launching a nationwide promotion like this, but they didn't (or no one thought to tell the local staff) so instead they end up with angry customers. This demonstrates to me that their national headquarters isn't coordinated with the local stores, and that the local stores haven't been empowered to satisfy the customer. A scoop of ice cream can't cost them more than a few cents in materials and labor - it wasn't worth that to build some customer goodwill? Not to mention, the HIGH today outside was 50 degrees...I could understand them being stingy with the product if it was the middle of summer and the store was packed, but give me a break. Suffice it to say, I will be going to Cold Stone or Haagen-Dazs next time.

In the grand scheme of things, an ice cream cone isn't worth getting upset over, but this is the kind of minor annoyance that really gets under my skin. Someone promised something, and then didn't deliver - that is no way to run a business. If you had the same problem I did, call the Baskin-Robbins Consumer Hotline at (800) 859-5339.