Pricing gaffe leads to PR, SM fail for TGW

Great point on Zappos, they spent 1.6 million I believe. And it is awful on the debit card situation, hopefully it gets sorted out soon. Trust is a major factor for me as well and I try to help grow that for my employer while working in the social media space.

Being compulsive and organized does have a few advantages. But "naw," I have no interest in bringing legal action myself, (although it appears to actionable in theory, but where I am left is annoyed for the experience (and thus far several hundred dollars behind (money has not been released from the use of my debit card) as I believed that Amazon had real integrity versus the all to common place situational integrity. Amazon is no longer the corporate apple of my eye and TGW is suffering for their apparent ineptitude likely far beyond their culpability (unlike BP as an example). Zappos had a similar incident and they ate 1.6 million dollars worth of shoes to maintain their integrity and perhaps their ideals. Expensive, but guess where I do all my shoe shopping now... . I like dealing with companies I can trust.

Thanks Keith. This is something that, unfortunately, we will see more about. Remember the TechCrunch article where startups see more value in social equity than PR?

This is an example of things that our craft is trained to do. Now if Dave were commenting back to folks the way that Gary Vaynerchuck does, then maybe it would have worked with his response. However going off half-cocked with no street credibility is a recipe for disaster.

@ EOAAT there are three sides to every story: yours, mine and the truth. TGW will take more of the heat, because Amazon has acquired a ton of people equity and good will.

GolfLove, my co-workers and I noticed those as well. It was good of you to print everything out and if you are looking to go the legal action route, I would look at their Facebook page where there are others rallying behind the same flag.

I also love Amazon as they stand behind everything that they sell.

Well whatever he did, he would be associated with the mess RYBO. I appreciate the comment.

Lee, thanks for the comment. I completely agree. The big issue was letting this slide through the weekend. If it was caught immediately, there may have been 10-20 orders instead of people ordering 20-30 sets of clubs. I also think that the loosey goosey approach to the comments and what ones stayed/were deleted were pretty bush league. Some people from the Wichita area hit me up on Twitter noting that only spam was deleted. I guess I missed the lesson where angry customers were considered spam.

Some people have to learn the hard way.

The worst time to determine your crisis communication strategy is in the middle of the crisis.

Companies make mistakes, that I can handle. What the problem here was that they didn't have a plan mapped out for how to deal with dust ups like this when they do occur. Companies need to have clear and well publicized rules for when they decide to delete comments. Users need to know in advance that their comments will be deleted if the violate certain rules (language, copyright, etc) I'll bet that the person deleting was pretty isolated from everything else and simply trying to keep everything squeaky clean.

Jeff - Good thoughts all around on how companies should and most definitely should not handle potential crisis situations (or in this case, more of just negligence) in the digital age. Yes, transparency and having open, honest executives are great things, but in the case of most businesses, it is almost always the best policy to have your dedicated PR/communications team handle communications with outside constituents in situations like this, especially if, as you noted, the CEO has no prior history of directly interacting with customers.

This really brings up a larger issue that we're beginning to see more in the social age of businesses - the fact that many executives and CEOs are being sold a lot of fluff about how they need to be in constant interaction with their customers and how they need to be as open, honest and passionate about their products and services as their customers are. That's all well and great, but in the real world that we all live in - the world that doesn't always take place online and can have serious consequences if one or two off-hand remarks that are made online on Twitter, Facebook or a company blog get out to the right people, this type of uber-transparency can have some serious consequences for the business.

It will be very interesting to see how businesses handle situations like this going forward an the balance they strike between being open and honest with customers, but also making sure they protect the business in the long run.

Great thoughts all around!

Blaming Amazon was not a smart move but I do believe Amazon is a bit guilty. They are the facilitator in this situation. Similar to a child playing in my yard and getting hurt, ultimately I am responsible. A quick response through business channels could have prevented much of the backlash. Now TGW and Amazon have a mess on their hands. Their latest response is a 20% discount, on regular priced items through Amazon.com only for items that simply do not exist. More avoidance and by doing this Amazon has tied themselves to the situation even more. I would have made the coupon good for anything at TGW.com A simple 'We messed up' in the very beginning would have sufficed. Now they may have more issues than before.

Jeff, it was not just this one set of clubs (the Taylormade R9 deal) but Amazon (TGW was the merchant affiliate) offered a set of Adams A7 hybrid wedges. Four clubs for $62.50. 90% off deal--which is something I look hard at. Because it was Amazon (with a famed A-Z guarantee) I bought two sets--one for my father-inlaw and one for me. Into my cart and bought. My debit card was processed and the money for the purchased locked down and then a friend of mine pointed out it wasn't such a great deal. It was just one club for $62.50-- a #7 Adams A7. I was perplexed for a moment until I found the screen shot I printed out of my purchase and determined that Amazon changed the goods after I purchased them. Now if that ain't bait and switch, I don't know what would be. I contacted the merchant and Amazon and this order too was cancelled. One of the remarkable things here apart from the law which requires a merchant to honor and advertised price in most cases, it that Amazon purportedly has the much hyped A-Z guarantee. Paragraph 8 of that guarantee states that in a fixed price transaction the seller is obligated to sell the goods at the listed price to buyers who meet the Seller's terms. That's us Bubba. Merchant's accept the risk of dealing with these Amazons and living under the sword of this guarantee to do business of Amazon. But, apparently this sword is made of plastic, because Amazon selectively applies this guarantee and would not stand behind it in either of these deals. So much for the credibility of Amazon.

I wouldn't be calling myself CEO unless I was going to offer a legitimate remedy. Now people associate the CEO's inaction or insufficient action with TGW. There is a face to this mess.