The Case of the $50 Planner

Planning Packing Slip

I’m addicted to paper planners and have tested/tried pretty much every one out there and even created my own.

I had tried one a couple years ago and thought “if only this was spiral bound so it could lay flat, it MIGHT be worth the hefty $49/quarter fee.” 

They came out with a spiral bound version recently and I decided to give it another try in combo with something else I’m using. It took 2.5 weeks to arrive with priority shipping (grumble). 

I opened the box and looked at the packing slip. According to the slip, inside was supposed to be the planner (it was) and a motivational/inspirational sticker (it wasn’t). 

No sticker. 

To be fair, I wasn’t expecting a sticker when I placed the order. Now that I knew there should be one however, I was curious and wanted it. 

Silly? Perhaps…after all, I spent $50 on a 3-month planner and was grumbling to myself about a sticker I wasn’t even expecting.

The point is that they created an expectation with that packing slip, one that immediately wasn’t met and that, every time I look at the planner, I’m reminded wasn’t met.

What they could have (should have, in my opinion) done is not mention anything about the sticker and let it be a surprise. 

One which the customer never would have known about if they ran out, a package got missed in inserting, etc. and that would be a lovely surprise when everything worked as intended. Surprise and delight. Not “surprise and don’t deliver.”

Where in your business could something similar be happening? 

Did you know that a customer is subconsciously looking for reasons to support that they made a good (or bad) decision in making a purchase? And that the first 72 hours after purchase are critical in reinforcing that they made a good decision? 

We’ll be discussing this, and much more, on next week’s virtual workshop and Q&A. If you haven’t yet registered, click here to register.