KFC and Coupon Lessons
Friday, May 22, 2009
Posted in: Barcodes
Blog traffic is a pretty good barometer of the spleen and stress that people are feeling these days, and the web has been awash with anger and outrage over the Oprah-KFC debacle.
Enough has been voiced about “fraud” and who is stupid and who is to blame. Another opinion about that won’t add anything meaningful. But the incident is an opportunity to learn something about couponing. It’s the same lesson that all businesses can share. That lesson is:
Don’t prepare for what you think will happen.
Prepare for the very worst that you can imagine will happen.
Then add another 20% to that scenario.
And then, you just might somewhere near to being prepared.
But there is even more important learning to be taken from the Oprah-KFC incident. Now I really am going to speak to the choir and the deaf ears that reside in and beyond the rest of the congregation. And here is that learning.
It’s all just people.
Most of the time they are doing their best.
Sometimes they make mistakes.
I used to be angry when a corporation or organization or government body made a mistake, and the first reaction was over-the-top venom, outcries for legal action and loud, vocal abuse.
Later in my life, I just got sad.Now, even later in my life, I mostly just note it and put it aside. It is not the main event. It is not where the real rubber is kissing the pavement. It is at least a mistake of equal or greater proportion that the one in question, and at best a massive distraction. At the end of the day, it helps and changes nothing.
What would help? What would drive change in situations like the Oprah-KFC mistake?How about if people accepted the rain checks that KFC is offering, along with their apology, and moved on to more important injustices. I can recommend a few that are truly more important and worthy of our outrage.
