The same can be said for services like Yelp. Yelp might drive people to restaurants, but it doesn’t benefit Yelp if merchants don’t attribute the new customer to Yelp. And how would they know? It’s not like you walk in the door and tell the restaurant owner you just located them on your iPhone via Yelp’s app. Foursquare hasn’t solved this either, despite having 250K merchants signed up and literally inventing the act of announcing your presence to the world. Both are great companies solving problems, but only Groupon has closed this attribution loop.
Hrm... maybe because most service companies that care ask how you found out about them in the first place? Well, most should. The fact that most companies don't try to determine that source when they're serving you (restaurants, haircuts, pet spas, printers, etc) is more an indication of really not understanding business and marketing in the first place. Outsourcing some of that - in this case, to groupon - may be a short term win, but you've just handed over your customer relations to a third party who has no real incentive to get those customers back to you any time soon.
Small service businesses need a strong CRM process. I don't think groupon is it, although it could morph in to that.
Hrm... maybe because most service companies that care ask how you found out about them in the first place? Well, most should. The fact that most companies don't try to determine that source when they're serving you (restaurants, haircuts, pet spas, printers, etc) is more an indication of really not understanding business and marketing in the first place. Outsourcing some of that - in this case, to groupon - may be a short term win, but you've just handed over your customer relations to a third party who has no real incentive to get those customers back to you any time soon.
Small service businesses need a strong CRM process. I don't think groupon is it, although it could morph in to that.