Amazon is making huge waves recently.  I just finished reading Delivering Happiness which is sort of about Zappos and their rise from nothing to being acquired by Amazon.  The book is much more than that, but it does tell the story.

Anyway, Amazon has also acquired the fun loving Woot!  And in their normal sarcastic way, they made a rap about it.  Watch and enjoy.

I am constantly surprised about how some business are operated.  It never seems like the customer’s feelings are taken into consideration. 

Let’s take my recent purchase from Adobe.com.  As usually, as soon as I see an “Enter Promotion Code” box, I immediately assume there is a promotion available.  I see a live chat window pop up and decide to ask for a promotion code, only to be told that they can not give me any discounts.  I try every trick in the book, walking away, etc….  Nothing made the operator budge.

I take to Google to start my search and within a couple of minutes I find a 10% off, which saved me $180.  I try to tell the operator (Roy) that he should tell his boss of this experience.  If Adobe would give there operators a code to give to people that ask of chat, then maybe Adobe could create a better win/win experience.  I would have been happy to tell my boss that I saved the company $100, had the operator gave me that chance.  And Adobe would have made another $80 for themselves.  That’s what I call a win/win. 

I am happier to tell my boss that I save $180.  But that doesn’t serve this article well.

We here at bowlingball.com have learned to listen to customers.  If they ask for a bowlingball.com promotion code, and we know we have them running, we will give out the code.  Let’s face it, online, there are always promotions running.  Why make someone turn somewhere else looking for a deal.

Like I tried to tell Roy.  This was just my $0.02 and was never meant for a blog entry until he gave me another templated answer telling me that he couldn’t give me any discounts.  Roy….  I already told you I found a 10% code and already save $180.  I don’t need your help saving money any more. 

Life isn’t so easy for big business anymore.  If you complained back in the day, a corporate giant could just brush you off.  Nowadays, with the speed of information, this just can’t happen.  We have seen this a few times recently, with the most recent being United Air.  Watch this video that was created to tell a story of a broken guitar by Sons of Maxwell.  In the end, they got United’s attention, and United Airlines made a public apology via twitter.

Gary Vaynerchuck’s take on advertising in today’s economy. Google’s stock is down, but you can still make money. ROI is the answer. Watch his video, let me know your thoughts below.