Well, yes, but... take away from this something less grim. It's something a friend who was in marketing used to say to me all of the time: "good customer service is the best marketing, and it's often very nearly free."
Chick-fil-a figured this out years ago. Their employees are required to be nice and kind, and they can get fired for having a crappy attitude. This sounds awful, Stepford-wifeish, but in reality it improves the working environment for the employees and for the customers, and it costs practically nothing. The stores aren't wildly successful simply because their (let's be honest) sorta bland chicken sandwiches are indescribably delicious. The last interaction you have with the store is a pleasant one, and that's why you're happy to go back.
(Raising Cane's does this as well, and their chicken is better.)
Sending out thank-you notes is relatively cheap, and it has an impact.
> (Raising Cane's does this as well, and their chicken is better.)
Hard disagree.
I've never had chicken that is rubbery/contains a tendon from CFA, it's basically guaranteed to happen every time I try Cane's, to the point where I've basically stopped eating there.
It's a sign to me that they only go "skin deep" on quality, because it's not "inedible" but while you're eating the last thing I want is a bite of it to be rubbery and fall apart in my hand because of it.
Sending out a “hand” written thank you letter long after a transaction is completed and real time customer service at the time of transaction are not comparable actions of customer service.
My dad has been ordering green tea from a particular seller for maybe 10 years now, in part because they include a lovely little handwritten note for each order. It is absolutely comparable.
Customer service at the time of sale are things like promptly taking my order, being sufficiently staffed to minimize and address possible issues, and just having a quick, consistent, friendly experience.
If seller A is offering the above but no handwritten note, and seller B is not offering the above at the level of seller A, but is offering a handwritten note, I will chose seller A every time.
This thread makes me think I should possibly assign negative value for a hand written note.
Well, it certainly depends. I'm not expecting McDonald's to send me a thank-you note. I was talking in generalities, not specifics.
I frequent a local store that sells boutique art supplies. Natural paints and that sort of thing. They are very customer-focused, and while hand-written thank-yous aren't something they do, if they started doing them I wouldn't be surprised. They know and appreciate their customers, and were particularly good during COVID, as the owners had health issues that made them concerned. They survived, partially due to their customer service, which included direct messaging as required to make sure people were able to shop and get their purchases easily and safely.
I don't have much evidence to support this claim, but as best I can tell Chick-fil-a has far superior food quality than Raising Cane's. Chick-fil-a holds their ingredients & preparation to the same high standard as they do their customer service, whereas Raising Cane's is much more hit-or-miss, a lot more like the McDonalds or Burger Kings out there.
One thing you can look at is the nutrition label. Total calorie counts aren't so useful IMO, but Raising Cane's reports that their foods have unhealthy trans fats, while Chick-fil-a reports 0 trans fats.
Raising Cane's makes me sick whenever I get it, whereas Chick-fil-a is extremely well digested for me.
Do you eat a lot of junk food generally in your diet? That could be one reason why maybe your gut bacteria are craving the worse quality food & causing you to not enjoy CFA as much.
No, but you're going to make the claim anyways, aren't you?
>but as best I can tell Chick-fil-a has far superior food quality than Raising Cane's. Chick-fil-a holds their ingredients & preparation to the same high standard as they do their customer service, whereas Raising Cane's is much more hit-or-miss, a lot more like the McDonalds or Burger Kings out there.
Ah, yep. I can tell you've had some bad experiences with Raising Cane's.
>Raising Cane's makes me sick whenever I get it, whereas Chick-fil-a is extremely well digested for me.
Both of them make me sick! I can't digest either.
>Do you eat a lot of junk food generally in your diet? That could be one reason why maybe your gut bacteria are craving the worse quality food & causing you to not enjoy CFA as much.
I think I have to ask you the same question! Do you eat a lot of low quality fast food? That could be one reason your gut bacteria are craving food from a fast food joint instead of something that isn't deep fried and covered in Polynesian sauce.
Why so hostile? We're just talking about fast food man, lol.
> Do you eat a lot of low quality fast food? That could be one reason your gut bacteria are craving food from a fast food joint instead of something that isn't deep fried and covered in Polynesian sauce.
No, I don't, which is why I don't crave fast food. I get Chick-fil-a once or twice a month for fun.
Your comment about your preferred deep fried bird eatery being better than another commenter's preferred deep fried bird eatery just came off as bizarre.
Yup until recently, they had no real competition in the fast food chicken sandwich game. Popeyes and McDonalds have caught up some amount, but not fully. They also don’t have waffle fries. In college, the line for the Chic Fil A was impossibly long every single day because the food was great. It also somehow doesn’t give you as much of the bad feeling you usually get after eating fast food.
The midtown locations in New York are also incredibly efficient. They take orders on iPads in the line and the order is done by the time you get to the front.
> good customer service is the best marketing, and it's often very nearly free
Free may apply less to CFA. One thing they don't get enough credit for is that they a decent amount more than their competitors who pay barely above minimum wage. It's clearly an investment that's payed off, but there is definitely a cost to it.
And Popeyes would be my go-to for chicken if it weren't so far away.
I had the same response. It should really read - sincere sales increase sales - thats the model. Whatever is considered to be the next sincere thing will be emulated by marketing and ruined.
Sincerity under payment has to be taken for what it is. I expect and appreciate to be treated nicely when going to a restaurant but I'm under no illusion that it's because I'm going to pay for it, otherwise I doubt all that people would be cooking, serving and cleaning afterwards with a smile in their face while I sit there saying thank you.
So once everybody has automated this, the next level will be the handwritten note with a personal detail, which will increase (repeat) sales.
Back in the day, I used to write a handwritten note with every single box I sent out. Since I had often had a conversation with the customer prior to that, I could often include some personal detail, showing that the message was not generic but truly written for that person. (I did have a generic message that I would use in a minority of cases.)
It does take a little bit of dedication and love of the customer to do this over and over again, so I'm not convinced shady, unscrupulous marketers would do it.
That depends on if they are handwritten, or some font that looks sort of like handwritten. At least until/unless AI can write thank yous that pass the Turing test. Right now the effort vs reward of a thank you is not worth it for most sales, and people can pick out computer generated thank yous.
Even then, Wal*Mart will never send you a thank you note - the cost of postage alone is too high. However car salesmen have long ago figured out it is worth writing a thank you - it only takes a few repeat customers to make the time and postage worth it.
That said, if you are a small business a handwritten thank you is good advice. Very few small business run a many customers with a low profit business model (only retail), and as such you are probably in one area where a handwritten thank you will help.
At one point you need to scale, and you realise you can just manipulate symbols easier. They might at one point have come from sincerity, but industrial scale trumples all.
Which is...the entire industry? I think this is a very simplistic view. Scale is pervasive in capitalism and not restricted to marketing. It is not being unimaginative, it is just a byproduct of the industry (isonomy and reproducibility over personalisation and personality).
Another interpretation would be that they are just uncovering the fact that behind many nice and kind behaviours lie some very selfish interests.
In every human interaction you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests. It's just the way it is. Some people can see it, others not or just don't want to.
> In every human interaction you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests.
I agree with this in general - but some interactions really are more about mutual feeling-good, than about power struggles. Of course, those interactions are necessarily with people who are close to us.
I think the better way to put this would be:
In every interaction *with strangers* you can perceive the battle over power, social status and personal interests.
Not sure if your statement is true even if I can see some relationships to be mutually beneficial. However, the term frenenemy exists for a reason.
I think some part of oneself is always calculating one's own value and power in relation to others. Some of these mechanics only become apparent if there is a big change in a relationship like one of your friend or family member becoming very successful for example.
I don't understand. Every one of my friends is an awesome person who deserves health, happiness, and security. If they find those things, I'm happy for them. What kind of person do you mislabel "friend" if you get upset that their life is becoming better?
It's one thing to be happy for your friend's success, it's another thing to watch your friend have all the things that you want in life but can't get, on a regular basis.
Of course, one could ask whether or not that friend has the responsibility to share his success with you, or whether or not it is right to feel that they do. Those are tricky questions, and asking them still doesn't stop ugly emotions from appearing. And since friendships are mostly based on good emotions, bad emotions cause issues.
Human interactions are simple in theory, but very complex in practice.
True enough. Even though i can see it doesn't mean it isnt disappointing.
Tangentially related, do you think some people can see/feel power and are drawn in while other people are relatively immune to it? There are some people in the world that i see have a very good ability to read power etc while others are hopeless (for better or worse). Seems similar to your comment thats why i ask
I think some people are way better at seeing these mechanics at play than others. it's what is called social intelligence I think. Yet it also can be midly depressing to see your friend trying to subtly decrease your social status by some harmless remarks when a woman is in the vicinity.
People who do not see it are most easily exploited by it. For example a person with low self-esteem who does (often unconsciously) signal it to others even if it worsens his situation even more.
No but this is legitimate. You're supposed to do this and it is known to increase sales because it is virtuous--if it's virtuous, people will judge by the calligraphy.
This has been going on for a while. I've seen it mostly in the "I will pay cash for your house" industry. The process has definitely gotten more convincing; before, all the letter shapes would be the same, but now there's enough variation that it's plausible that these notes are handwritten if it weren't for the context.
Every time I read more about marketing (for my business) it enrages me more.
I basically don't use twitter, but I find myself on the platform in rants about how exploitive and manipulative some people are willing to be.
There is one company that targets vunerable people with their relatively affordable Veblen goods to make them feel socially insecure if they buy an Android instead. It's so obvious when you read about it, but it's masked in edgy advertising.
Reading about a company's marketing strategy is probably not good for my health.
"Apple products are classified as Veblen products, because most often users choose them, guided by the big name of the brand and believing that the possession of this technology will increase their status in society."
This nonsensical trope is trotted out on HN all the time with no data to support it. Just the fact that Apple products are objectively not expensive enough to convey any information about status should be enough to prevent it from being posted.
I employ people that earn $15 to $20 per hour with no benefits that use Apple products like iPhones, MacBook airs, and air pods.
This is because you are upper middle class. Among the working class and teenage population, it is a status symbol.
We have our own in the upper middle class and we are similarly exploited. Luxury cars + a honorable cause is one that comes to mind.
Marketing can target insecurities but it doesn't need to be insecurity based. I just find that most egregious. Advertising "new, better, faster,tech" seems like the opposite end of this.
> "Apple products are classified as Veblen products, because most often users choose them, guided by the big name of the brand and believing that the possession of this technology will increase their status in society."
As if people might not be choosing Apple products like iPhones because of their proven track record of lasting much longer and being more desirable for the qualities of the product in and of themselves.
When people buy a Patek Phillipe watch, that might have the claim of being bought with the intent to signal status. A Patek Philippe watch tells time no better than any $15 watch.
But the implication that Apple products are mainly bought due to vanity needs to be supported by data. They have a reputation of being more durable, lasting longer, having more consistent user interfaces, better battery life, real life support from Apple employees in Apple stores, integrated software, primarily non ad supported business model, less known for malware, etc.
If I were poorer, it would be kind of insulting to think I would not value any of that and I am paying $200 to $500 for an Apple product than the cheapest alternative product simply to signal status.
Edit: as an illustration, Toyotas usually cost more than some other brands, but I do not see anyone claiming people are buying Toyotas in order to status signal. Or a Leatherman tool versus a Harborfreight tool.
I understand that at the very poor end, not buying the cheapest anything could signal status, but that is very different than buying something to signal status, which is what Veblen goods are about.
I'm in upper middle class and switched away from an iPhone to an Android last year and felt like I dropped classes based on verbal reactions from my peers. I thought it was much more prominent as a status symbol in lower classes, but many of my peers also indirectly conveyed that my status had dropped. Some outright said it. I find it pretty bizarre and unfortunate, but now I'm back to getting the new iPhone because it's exhausting to be treated lesser based on a phone choice.
Only one person said it directly who I’m close with and is always candid. I also almost always received a short comment about having an Android when initially connecting with a woman both in real life and on dating apps.
The bigger ramifications were ones I noticed myself. I wasn’t included in group texts organizing things where I usually would have before. I was still invited to things. Just no longer part of the organization messages. It was very subtle things like that where you notice people are treating you slightly different than they used to. Nothing major or dealbreaking but enough to make you realize there’s something there if you’re observant.
It’s tough to explain but the circles I’m in are so used to iPhones, that deviating from normality causes people to perceive you as no longer part of the collective group.
The other way I think about Veblen goods is that when you're purchasing an e.g. Balenciaga shirt, you're paying for 2 things:
1. the shirt
2. you're giving money to Balenciaga to go out there and tell people how great owners of Balenciaga shirts are. You're paying them to do some marketing on your behalf, in a way.
A logo’d shirt is a poor example of a Veblen good.
Per wiki
>A Veblen good would be something where the demand increases as the price increases.
Shirts with logos are actually priced lower than shirts with logos. They might signal that someone can ship at an outlet mall rather than Walmart, but not much more. All the high end clothing will not have conspicuous logos.
I think it heavily depends on the logo. Lots of luxury brands are very conspicuous with their logos. Louis Vuitton comes to mind but specifically with shirts:
