Ouch wow, the wrong kind of wow

Wow is often problematic because it provides a wow moment (oh boy!), then does nothing at all in regards to selling, instead prompting the viewer to look for the next wow. Of course, you can’t keep wowing all the time.

But that’s not the wrong kind of wow I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the kind of wow that’s really more ‘Ouch’ than wow. Ouch wow is when you utterly fail to support what you sell, which is perhaps okay for short term sales, but will inevitably damage your brand (if you care).

An example of Ouch wow
I had a need to put up a quick website in one day, and rather than bother my fully scheduled development team, I decided to use a stock theme (whoops). I found the one I wanted, forked over my dough, built the site, got down to one final detail that I could not crack, and SNAP! I can’t launch.

I emailed the developer off the demo page, and got a response within ten minutes. Awesome! Oh but wait. His response (not an autoresponder) was that I should email him from the form on the theme purchase page, which I did within one minute. Then… cricket silence. Not a word. No support whatsoever.

So I found the developer’s Twitter, read a few posts, and (Ouch wow) the guy is not someone I would want to do business with. He’s actually tweeted that he hates it when theme buyers request support! He’s sold tens of thousands of dollars in themes, and he’s leveling complaints about supporting his own work. Wow! (the wrong kind).

Now I have to go bother one of my real developers. Or switch stock themes. This is why we do custom themed websites. Clean code, great support, no hassles (that, and our customers don’t want to look just like their competitors).

Avoid ‘ouch wow’. Love your customers. It’s smart marketing.

Kelly Hobkirk - teaching marketers how to harness strategy, goals, reality, and purpose to connect and do better work.

 

Kelly Hobkirk has been helping companies succeed in creative ways for nearly 25 years. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, and books by Rockport and Rotovision. Get exclusive articles when you sign up for his monthly newsletter.

Thank you! This is going to feel good.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *