BOW+ARROW

If you’re a retail business or restaurant owner, a large group of people usually means one of two things: a surge in business…or an angry mob.

Social coupon sites such as buywithme, groupon, eversave and others help bring the crowds – but businesses using

Restaurants need to protect themselves from their own coupons

those services need to seriously consider how they’re going to prepare themselves in order to avoid that angry mob.

Consider the KFC chicken-and-sides saga.

Now, this fiasco didn’t have to do with any of the social coupon sites, however it did become a social coupon and serves as an example for how things can get out of hand.

KFC announced the online coupon on the Oprah Winfrey show. The coupons were for a free meal – valued at $3.99 each – and the promotion was supposed to last 2 weeks. However, soon after the announcement, over 10 million coupons were printed resulting in the promotion being cut-off after only 2 days with 5.7 million people denied their free meal.

Since then, KFC has been tied-up in a $25 million dollar lawsuit. All due to some free $3.99 meals.

Now, a benefit of working directly with the coupon sites is that they bring a great deal of experience to the process and can work with businesses in order to better prepare them for the social coupon process – however there is always going to be risk.

Ellen Malloy, the founder of the Restaurant Intelligence Agency, recently raised the issue in a blog post. Malloy suggests that places that use social coupons to drive more business need to consider employees whose lack of enthusiasm toward the coupon-crowd could lead to bad service, causing bad buzz and so on.

Malloy’s comments aren’t completely off base. There are many stories about customers complaining of long waits, inadequate treatment, and feeling rushed.

Again, it all comes down to preparation and expectations  – just start by asking yourself: how do I keep that mob from getting angry?

—

Kevin Smith is an Account Supervisor at PJA Advertising & Marketing. Follow him on Twitter: @Mr_KevinSmith

This post was featured as the social media nightmare segment during the August 5th edition of This Week In Social Media.