I had an odd dream last night. I dreamed that Marks and Spencers were running a special offer, where if you spent £100 they'd give you a free case of beer. I was at the checkout with my groceries, which came to just over £100 and a member of staff gave me the promised box of beer. I was most pleased, until I noticed it was alcohol free beer. I queried this and was told "You get what you are given". I became quite cross, but the manager pointed out the small print at the bottom of the sign. I felt defeated. I have no use for no alcohol beer. I was still cross with M&S when I woke up, a bit irrational really as they are not running the promotion. It did make me think about a few things. Firstly, how we need to read the small print on special offers. How often have we fallen for it and gotten our box of alcohol free beer metaphorically? The second thing, is as a business owner, have I ever done such a promotion? One that sounds brilliant, but which has lost, rather than gained customers. I do know of one regular ex customer, who stopped coming because we wouldn't give him the discount that we gave customers booking online with a voucher code. He always booked by phone and paid cash. He felt that as he was a good customer, we should have just given him the discount anyway. From our perspective, the purpose of the discount was to get people to try out the online system. As we wouldn't, he took his business elsewhere. He's never been back. In hindsight, we'd shot ourselves in the foot as he was a regular. The fact that he had not complied with the terms and conditions of the deal was irrelevant. We lost a customer. Perhaps even the oddest dreams have some sort of message for us!
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