Lakme definitely is a good brand and the products do deserve the branding for its style and sophisticated feeling that it gives one.
But is just brand name and a good product enough to meet the ultimate goal of almost every company. i.e. customer satisfaction. Many who are Brand conscious will definitely prefer Lakme and why shouldn’t they its affordable plus trustworthy to use it
So basically it runs neutral for many. However their Salon is very expensive having spent 10k for certain services they credited me some points and have always been messaging me about the balance points however I never paid attention towards the message but suddenly I happened to notice the Lakme points been given to me which are redeemable in any Lakme Salon. I therefore wished to buy a small product as I am not interested in availing any service. so I called up Lakme Salon to confirm about the product I wished to buy using points but I was denied for buying any cosmetic availing points and the that can be redeemed only by availing services given to me Now what do we call this. Business Strategy with zero proofing? Its very clear that they are providing points just to encourage one to take up services over and over again. spending 10k I get 780 points and even if each point is equivalent to a rupee I’m getting less than 10% discount on another 10k!
Best part was even the Salon employee and the customer care executive agreed with the logic.
My question is. why name " Reward Points" and simply raise expectations. Just imagine a gizmo freak kid who is gifted a Nintendo Wii on b’day but never allowed to play without following lame terms! the kid will start hating the Santa in question! That’s the same feeling I’m having right now. I was assured to be given a solution to this but they just don’t care to revert and after the question maybe they don’t LIKEME;) I am therefore taking down my frustrations here. Thanks to Mouthshut.
The only thing that has always been frustrating is these well set businesses take customers for granted very easily. I wonder how do I define any brand name good or bad for the target audience. Lakme risking its image for just 780 points is very disappointing. I will always choose L’Oreal Paris over Lakme even though its expensive they are able to justify the pricing.
FMCG is such a competitive sector yet some companies manage to fool us and yet hog the limelight.
Phew! tired of their boasting and finally tired of typing!