The Key To Our Mystery

I had to admire the initiative of one of my staff members last week. We have some house-shaped key rings with our logo on that are handed out to all new buyers and tenants when they move into their new homes. A nice little gift and bit of advertising all rolled into one.

In an attempt to win even more business for Imagine, Claire had thought it would be a good idea to send these out as a mass mail shot promoting our services. She hoped this might encourage a few more people to call in and enquire about our services. Instead of the recipient just getting another ‘why you should choose us to sell/let your home’ mail, they’d actually did get something useful. However, it didn’t quite work out that way.

A week or so after she sent them all out, we still hadn’t had a single call referring to them. She was a bit surprised that her master plan seemed to have failed so badly and couldn’t understand what could possibly have gone wrong. The mystery was soon solved.

I received a complaint from a very frustrated lady. It turned out Claire’s ‘FREE GIFT’ actually weighed enough to take the envelope over the minimum charge for postage. As a result, all people had actually received was an underpayment postcard with a £1.20 charge for a mystery parcel they needed to go and collect. Now even I had to admit, much as I like our key rings, I wouldn’t be quite so delighted to go and collect a parcel, pay for it, only to discover it was a letter with one of our key rings in it.
 
Whilst I only got one phone call, I suspect there may be a number of slightly disappointed individuals who may have traipsed down to the local sorting depot wondering what their surprise is, only to be more than a little underwhelmed by the result. Suffice to say we will cover any costs incurred by anyone that has been affected and anyone else who would like an Imagine key ring can have one absolutely free AND we will hand deliver it to you!
 
N.B. – In the interests of even-handed reporting, I should state that Claire did let 16 properties in one month earlier this year. In my 15 years in the business, that is the most I have had any individual let in a single month.