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This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

josephwalla.com

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Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#31

Post by stangeek »

treehau5 wrote: post #18
click170 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for respecting their choice, though I'm concerned they've done themselves a disservice somewhat by missing out on free publicity, especially for something as glowing as this. If the author of that email reads this I do hope you claim ownership so that I can reward your company with my patronage.

Maybe Acme is afraid of exploding into too much volume, and not being able to provide that aforementioned exceptional customer service. Maybe they just choose to be humble and let their actions do the talking! Either way, this to me is speaking volumes to the type of company this is, but I do share your desire to know what the name of the company is.

Or maybe Acme is afraid that FooCorp will refute their argument about a so-called "race to the bottom"... Maybe, just maybe, Acme is lying about "customers [...] switching to Acme in droves "...

I am not really impressed when a potential supplier is bad mouthing competition to get ahead of the pack. I would have a hard time trusting them, and being confident that at some stage they wouldn't bad mouth my company if I was no longer a client for XYZ reason later on....

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#32

Post by miahi »

duckingtest wrote: post #27

You should also write to the cheaper company. Or was the lesson supposed to be that writing meaningless platitudes like 'race to the bottom' is good marketing? Perhaps it is, but personally, I would feel insulted. There's no worse assumption that cheaper product is worse, especially when it comes to SaaS. What if FooCorp has automated much more than Acme, and even with lower prices actually has both better profits pe…

Yes, you can get great service from such companies. But you also take the risk of the company shutting down because they lost 2 customers and it cannot afford to be alive anymore - and then you have the added costs of switching to another (more popular and expensive) solution.

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#33

Post by kubiiii »

duckingtest wrote: post #27

You should also write to the cheaper company. Or was the lesson supposed to be that writing meaningless platitudes like 'race to the bottom' is good marketing? Perhaps it is, but personally, I would feel insulted. There's no worse assumption that cheaper product is worse, especially when it comes to SaaS. What if FooCorp has automated much more than Acme, and even with lower prices actually has both better profits pe…

Right. The striking thing is that op's decision to choose the more expensive solution is now both confirmed by the fact that the solution was better because more expensive and by the fact that it works.

An email from the cheaper company explaining why they were cheaper could have had the exact same effect.

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#34

Post by FooBarWidget »

duckingtest wrote: post #27

You should also write to the cheaper company. Or was the lesson supposed to be that writing meaningless platitudes like 'race to the bottom' is good marketing? Perhaps it is, but personally, I would feel insulted. There's no worse assumption that cheaper product is worse, especially when it comes to SaaS. What if FooCorp has automated much more than Acme, and even with lower prices actually has both better profits pe…

"Just enough customers to be alive"? Would you really trust a SaaS that is about to lose money and go bankrupt at any time?

Furthermore, if the company has just enough customers to be alive then there's a pretty big chance that their founders or employees are working over time in order to keep costs low. They might get sick any time, making the company fall over. Not a sustainable situation. Would you really trust your data with that?

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#35

Post by mattmanser »

I've worked in enterprise SASS, salesman know not a lot about their own product, ROIs are plucked from asses and often it's all fibs.

Bear in mind I thought our sales guys were great, our product pretty good vs the field.

But basing your purchase on an email like this?

You're a complete sucker. All that happened was that a salesman just called their bluff. And they were impressed by it!

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

If I got an e-mail like this, I'd most likely go with the competitor.

> The FooCorps's of the world have spent a couple decades now in a the race to the bottom and it shows. I have no doubt you can get their product (or a whole raft of others) for a few bucks cheaper than us.

AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows."

> Our product, Acme, is different.

Of course.

> Look, FooCorp's customers are switching to Acme in droves because we're investing heavily in great customer service and innovation.

Yeah? I'd like to see data that supports it. This is one of the most common blatant lies in marketing (sure, it is true for some specific values of customers, switching and in droves) and I see no reason to trust it at face value; the sole inclusion of this sentence feels like evidence against company quality.

The same e-mail could be sent by FooCorp or any other competitor in that space. There's no Acme-product-specific information here, just universal marketing slogans.

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#38

Post by duckingtest »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #34
duckingtest wrote: post #27

You should also write to the cheaper company. Or was the lesson supposed to be that writing meaningless platitudes like 'race to the bottom' is good marketing? Perhaps it is, but personally, I would feel insulted. There's no worse assumption that cheaper product is worse, especially when it comes to SaaS. What if FooCorp has automated much more than Acme, and even with lower prices actually has both better profits pe…

"Just enough customers to be alive"? Would you really trust a SaaS that is about to lose money and go bankrupt at any time? Furthermore, if the company has just enough customers to be alive then there's a pretty big chance that their founders or employees are working over time in order to keep costs low. They might get sick any time, making the company fall over. Not a sustainable situation. Would you really trust yo…

>Would you really trust a SaaS that is about to lose money and go bankrupt at any time?

I meant a company that has just a bit more profit and revenue than that. Perhaps I should have written that in some other way.

Re: This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales

#39

Post by hywel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

If I got an e-mail like this, I'd most likely go with the competitor. > The FooCorps's of the world have spent a couple decades now in a the race to the bottom and it shows. I have no doubt you can get their product (or a whole raft of others) for a few bucks cheaper than us. AKA. "Our competition suck and it shows." > Our product, Acme, is different. Of course. > Look, FooCorp's customers are switching to Acme in dr…

It sounds like you don't like that the email is part of the company's marketing. But wouldn't it be crazy if they sent such an email without making it part of their marketing?

Also, there is differentiation, and explanation of why that's valuable. "We're designed to help improve your'e company's performance in the critical area of XYZ. The ROI on doing that is enormous."

Yes, any competitor could have sent such an email outlining their USP / positioning. But most of them won't, and that's what makes this an excellent example.

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