Rule #9 – You are only as good as your last service.
As usual, I was watching Kitchen Nightmare last night and Gordon Ramsey through out the rule above. The Chef was trying to get across to an owner that one good service a week does not a good restaurant make. Every service is important and your customers only remember the last experience they had with you. Every time you interact with a given customer is an important time for you to execute as flawlessly as possible. I think this is very important on all sides of the affiliate industry as well.
We could translate the rule above as “your only as good as your last affiliate check sent” or “your only as good as the last time you honored the affiliate agreement you signed” or ” your only as good as the last time you honored a promotion you offered to your affiliates”.
There are certain basic foundations of running an affiliate program such as timely checks, clear terms and conditions, consistent, acurate and timely returns processed, quick response times, good and updated creative and more. For you affiliate managers, grade yourself honestly on some of those things. How did you do the last time? How was your last service? Too many affiliate managers don’t look at this way and it leads to a lack of trust from affiliates, and that hurts the industry.
On the other side, affiliates can abide by the same rule. Things such as trademark terms, abiding by basic terms and conditions, posting approved and acurate coupon codes, supplying needed or requested information to affiliate managers, delivering placements as promised and other areas are important for you to continue to get the support and perks from affiliate managers. How have you done? Not abiding by terms and conditions is one of the bigger problems in the community, at least ont his side of the ball. How have you done? If you measured yourself on your “last service”, what grade would you get?
It’s important to evaluate partners on thier overall track record, but having a bad experience recently will hurt your image and your profits overall. How was your last service?
