Click Here For a FREE…

by Bo McDonald

Oops, sorry wrong headline. You thought you were actually going to get something for free? So did hundreds, perhaps thousands of people a few weeks ago when they got an email from Thrifty Car Rental offering a free car rental. It turns out that offer was only supposed to be for a select few of their best customers. Unfortunately, many people who were not supposed to receive that offer in their email got it by mistake.

A representative from Thrifty offered this explanation to a reporter after the error was discovered: “Unfortunately, this was a human error and as soon as we became aware of the mass email distribution, we took steps to correct the situation.” What steps were taken to correct the situation you ask? An email was sent back out to those who received the initial offer with this message:

This morning you received an email from us offering you a coupon for a free rental day through Blue Chip Rewards. Unfortunately, this offer is not valid. You will not be able to book this offer online and you will not be receiving a coupon in the mail. Please disregard the email you received. We’re very sorry for any confusion our eagerness may have caused.

Classy. Sure, it’s a mistake that could have cost them a good bit of money had they honored it. Unfortunately the PR wheels started turning and every major news outlet in America started reporting on the story. They made sure to include the response from company, which pretty much told the customers “tough luck.” Sure, Thrifty avoided losing some money by not honoring the offer, but in turn they received what some marketing analysts are calling hundreds of thousands of dollars of bad PR. At the very least, Thrifty could have shown some goodwill and offered a discount on the next rental as an apology for the error.

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