Mending Knots
In March of 2009, I published an article to this blog titled ‘Why NOT TheKnot.com For Your Wedding Services’ in which I stated “Cutting Edge Entertainment will not pay to advertise on TheKnot.com, and I’ll gladly tell you why”. Admittedly, I was ranting about some very bad customer service and sub-par treatment that our company had experienced as a customer/advertiser with The Knot, and I only decided to write it and post it after being completely ignored by the The Knot and their agents.
On October 15 of 2010, almost two full years later, I published a follow-up article about The Knot called ‘Knot Again’. I’d had several solicitation calls from The Knot at that point, attempting to ‘earn back my business’, and in each instance I’d brought my case to the representatives attention, and in each case been treated with indifference, with the representative choosing to let the situation remain unattended and unresolved as opposed to dealing with it, which – in all fairness – is all I ever wanted someone to do.
A week later, I received a phone call from Knot Regional Sales Director Carolyn Mantone. The Knot had finally taken notice – almost two and a half years after the fact – and acknowledged their own customer service shortcomings.
Carolyn listened as I politely summarized my experiences. She admitted that the way the situation had been handled (or not handled) had been unacceptable, and offered Cutting Edge Entertainment a free listing in reparation for our mistreatment.
Typically I like to wait 24 hours before making this sort of decision, (a tactic I learned from the great David Fenkell), but in this case it was almost a no-brainer. I could have stood on some moral high ground, but really that would have just been silly. Passing up free advertising on the most trafficked wedding website in the world would simply be counterproductive, especially in the aftermath of a recession. I put irrelevant personal feelings aside and instead made my decision based on business and economics. I accepted Ms. Mantone’s apology and offer, and we are now listed vendors in the Philadelphia DJ category on The Knot. In the opening of my first article about The Knot I said “Cutting Edge Entertainment will not pay to advertise on TheKnot.com, and I’ll gladly tell you why“, and technically, I’m still standing by that statement. Besides, as the famous quote by Alexander Pope goes, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.”
I’m okay with being divine.
Moving forward with a gratis ad on TheKnot.com, they have no credit card to put through to auto-renew, and I have until October of 2011 to determine the value of a link on The Knot. This time, hopefully I’ll be drawing my opinions on the traffic that a basic ad drives to our website, as opposed to bad customer relations. Could I have negotiated a better deal than the basic listing? Perhaps, but for now I’m going to stick to my guns and not spend any money on upgrades to the ad. I’m curious to see if their basic listing (priced at $1,900.00) has value on it’s own, without any upgrades.
Hopefully it’s not as worthless as ads on David’s Bridal and GetMarried.com… but that’s a story for another day.
Craig Sumsky
Director
Cutting Edge Entertainment
Photo courtesy of Amy Palko – www.lessordinary.org.uk
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Craig, it’s great that we were able to come to an agreement that worked for both parties involved. The Knot has made great strides and investments into improving customer experience for all clients. We wish you much success with your listing and hope that you’ll see the value in continuing your relationship with The Knot and expanding upon it.