Two weeks ago I walked passed Student Union and saw some people doing a paint ball promotion. So I had a few words with them to see what’s the deal. After they explaining some one-day-only deals they offered, I tried to bargain to get more discount. Normally you can get lower price than what they call “bottom line price” in this kind of promotion. Because we can go as an society (AJS), obviously more business for them as well. At first they said it’s difficult to give me the price I quoted, but then after talking to the manager, they gave us an offer and I took it. It was a pretty good deal for paint ball game.
After showing the interest of taking their offer, I started asking about location and whether we can have our own group, because we want to play with our society people. They said yes yes yes, that place is only 20 minutes from Durham and we can go whenever we like. OK, sound perfect! So money paid, they smile, we happy.
Two weeks later now, when I’m organising transport for the game, some surprises come up! The closest paint ball centre is not 20 minutes away, not even close to 20 minutes! It takes 45 minutes at least to get there. What’s more, they have a set timetable, which means we can go whenever we like, but just need to miss a few games if go late. Also we can’t play with our own people, we need to join in other group. I don’t exactly how it works, but it’s way more complicated than what I heard from that promotion guy.
I studied marketing before and know a bit of sales and promotion. I remember I was once asked by a interviewer from UBS in LCF that “If you are a sales person, will you lie?”.It was a tough and tricky question, but my answer was “I won’t lie to my clients. However if they don’t ask the downside of my product or services, I won’t tell them on my own initiative. But of course if they do ask, I will tell them.” There wasn’t a good answer, but that’s what I can come out with at the spot. However, indeed, that’s also my understanding of to what level a salesperson can “lie”.
This paint ball company is out of my acceptance of good sales skill, they are just purely dishonest liars. I called to complain, they said they felt sorry but there is nothing can be done because some of their tickets are sold by agency companies, and I bought my tickets from one of them. I will definitely call the people I bought the tickets from and ask for a explanation. And just to leave this post as “customer feedback” for search engine, the paint ball company is PaintBallgames.co.uk and I bought tickets from IPG.net.uk. Watching out that IPG.net.uk is advised.
I am thinking to get Seth Godin’s Book “All marketers are liars“. It interests me a lot now.
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good appearance
“they smile, we happy”
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