So I bought a new monitor from Staples the other day and, of course, the sales associate pushed the extended warranty on me. Sure, why the hell not, for $20 it covers dead pixels plus another year on top of the manufacturer’s warranty. But it was only after I paid that I heard, “be sure to register your product to activate your warranty.”
Great. A new task to do, and this was just after I finished filling out a paper form for the “Staples Rewards” program. You know, the other thing that gets pushed on you when you buy something. “Fill out this form, and you’ll get X% back the more you buy.” It doesn’t cost anything, and who knows, maybe I’ll shop at Staples again at some point, right? Either that or I’m just a push over in person.
So then I get home and go to the site given me for product/warranty registration. And wow, is it a color-coded, form filling good time! Click on the graphics above and below to experience it for yourself.
Since I got this far, I figured I may as well blog about it. Staples isn’t the only time I’ve seen this, but it’s the most recent. My suggestion to retailers: automate all of this and get your systems talking to each other, and you might just get more than the push over customers!
