The Effective Detective was never a big one for newspapers (especially the ones that are mostly or all advertisements), being more of an email guy, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he got a tad upset when I brought to his attention an ad he had missed concerning a favorite restaurant of his.
“What’s that Watson? One of my favorite restaurants not only has an entertainer I would enjoy, but a special? When shall we go?”
“I’m afraid all of that is in the past tense sir. Last week to be precise.”
“Confound it, Watson! I don’t read those bloody papers! I have enough to do already let alone leafing through a collection of coupons and offers I generally have no interest in, just to see if there might be one that catches my fancy.” It would seem I had started a minor storm.
“Well sir, I don’t think they could go about calling every one of their customers to let them know what is happening on a regular basis. Far more cost efficient to do the ad.” I offered, watching the sarcasm, knowing that might trigger a bigger storm.
“Bah!” The Detective spat out, “I have been to that restaurant countless times, you would think they would have some kind of loyalty program set up.”
“Perhaps sir, but not everyone has the time, or in particular the resources to organize and run such a thing, and where could they get your contact information?” I replied, playing devil’s advocate.
“Again… Bah!” The Detective retorted, “Just have a simple sign up sheet, then type in the name and email addresses into an email program and send out offers and notices through that! For heaven’s sake they could queue up any number of dates at once and then let it run on auto-pilot. If they send useful offers or information on a regular basis, I would actually be looking forward to their emails, instead of having to sift through these bloody papers. And, I wouldn’t have missed the one last week! ” The Detective finished with a sigh.
“I see your point,” I answered, “could this also be utilized by other non-food establishments?”
“Of course Watson! Any retail outlet could easily do the same thing!” The Detective shot back.
“What could they use to do such a thing?” I asked.
“There are any number of inexpensive services out there,” The Detective replied, starting to calm down again. “But that discussion is for another time.”
“Of course,” I nodded, “Of course.”
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