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April 26, 2007
Fiber is in the details
A simple, yet illustrative example of how not to engage a blogging customer evangelist.
Feb. 1: Jeremy professes his love of, yes, Metamucil, on his blog.
Feb. 1: P&G's Metamucil brand manager comments on his blog post, asking to connect. Jeremy emails brand manager back.
Feb. 14: Brand manager emails Jeremy that his brand team loves the blog and offers Jeremy samples of new flavor of Metamucil. Jeremy is ecstatic. He sends the brand manager his mailing address.
April 14 (two months later): Jeremy outlines situation to-date. No samples. No further emails from P&G. Emails to brand manager bounce.
Nice approach by P&G, but the follow-up is pretty crappy, if you will totally forgive the pun.
Jeremy sums it up: "I mean, it's freakin' Metamucil! What company wouldn't want to stoke the fire of someone talking about that product? If you're a company and you can't take advantage of that, then you've got a problem. It's not like it's an iPhone."
UPDATE (4/28/07): Jeremy reports that he just received an apology letter from P&G for the delay inside a big ol' box of Metamucil. That was fast : )
Other blogs that reference Fiber is in the details:
» Do you pass the Bus Test? from Community Guy
Ben points out an interesting, yet ultimately fruitless exchange between a brand manager and blogger [Read More]
» Do you pass the Bus Test? from
Ben points out an interesting, yet ultimately fruitless exchange between a brand manager and blogger [Read More]
Impressive failure.
Not to be overly cynical, but what if the Protor & Gamble guy was a phony? And it was just a sneaky ploy to obtain information about Jeremy?
Maybe their shipping department was a little backed up... hardee har har.
No, seriously. That's quite pathetic. It started off so promising. Expectations were set, but they obviously were never met. Perfect example of how to ruin a customer relationship and generate negative word of mouth. (P)oops.
maybe the high profile will get their attention....
and no, it wasn't a phony, since I did have an original correspondence with the guy.
Just strange.
Thanks for the call out, guys!
And I thought the phone and cable companies were the only ones who owned lots of fiber and couldn't get the service right . . .
That's an absolutely classic example of "what not to do." Though, if it were a mystery story, one telling clue might be that the email is now bouncing... Perhaps P&G "bounced" the product manager?
I think they may have "bounced" the product manager, but thanks to Jackie, the shipment arrived.
Check out the full details:
http://jer979.blogspot.com/2007/04/metamucilconclusion.html
The exact opposite situation happened with me and LaraBar
I blogged about them, they offered a sample of their new bar, and ended up sending me 2 full boxes of samples...well over $60 worth.
Amazing thing...i had so many...that I shared them.
http://brentlamphier.typepad.com/a_college_entrepreneur/2007/02/evangelization_.html
