Is UHaul brandcoasting?
(photo credit – Heyrog )
UPDATE: February 3, 2009 – See update on the story below.
Today a lively discussion broke out on Twitter following a tweet I made about the poor customer service experience my wife had dealing with UHaul for our upcoming move. Dozen’s of people responded with their own UHaul horror stories. And there were many. And with each response post more stories came out of the woodwork – @catchuplady has a great post on the conversations that happened on UHaul today pointing to the real reasons businesses need to be involved in social media, and specifically Twitter.
What specifically struck me from a marketing perspective is how, in this day of “power to the people” social media, that a company with some much bad blood with customers could continue to stay the course with this kind of strategy, or more importantly, to stay in business? For those of us who spend lots of time in social media don’t we see it as the great equilizer – helping brands stay true to their customers and true to themselves?
Here we have a well-known North American brand seemingly oblivious to the goings-on in social media and to the pent up frustration with it’s brand. It’s almost, as some of the discussions pointed out today, that bad customer service is part of the formula – part of the price of a “low price offering”. But wait, there are other low priced options in other industries where excellent customer service is also offered. So what gives? How can a brand appear to continue to bring in customers to pay the bills with these kind of customer service issues?
Could UHaul be “brandcoasting”? Have they found the perfect storm in which to brandcoast on the laurel’s of their past brand image? I have no doubt they still sit in the number one slot for brand recognition in their moving truck category but can’t imagine that they got there on bad customer service. Something must have changed or been allowed to slip – perhaps on purpose.
Maybe brandcoasting can happen when:
- customers traditionally don’t research before buying
- customers purchase the services rarely or sporatically
- few market competitors exist creating monopolistic environment
- competitors have not successfully illustrated their competitive advantages
- the brand category is not an “exciting” one so little attention is paid to it
- category is price sensitive and often requires support from a national network
So is UHaul brandcoasting? Are there others?
Update to the story – February 3, 2009
A few weeks ago, I received a message from Shel Israel that Maria Palmisano from U-Haul wanted to talk to me. Shel is using this case study in his upcoming book on Twitter called Twitterville. He had posted the chapter and it had been found by Maria. We talked on the phone and she listened to the story. She apologized for a number of things where she noticed there had been a breakdown on their side. She also offered to help make good with $40 worth of U-Haul certificates – to be used for rentals, boxes, tape etc… Well, it was kind of her to call and to make the offer but I really didn’t see myself moving again any time soon. So I asked if she could send the certificates to a local charity. She also promised to contact the regional group about the dealer. I didn’t hear anything further from Maria and I started to wonder if nothing had happened. I was pleased to receive an email from her today stating that she had sent a notice to the Regional office and that the local Boys and Girls Club had been sent the certificates. Thank you Maria. I also wanted to include the final line in her email because it provides some hope for U-Haul users out there – “I hope you will allow U-Haul to redeem itself in the future, I know we can do better.” I hope to see more of this kind of response from U-Haul in the future because it can only be good for their customers, and U-Haul.
August 26th, 2008 - Posted in brandcoasting, social media, twitter | | 2 Comments
