Got a link sent to my email yesterday that was for the Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway. I thought: Free + Food = WIN!
I went to the site and gave up my email address in order to get the coupon. They’re slick those guys at Quiznos, they make it so you can only print it once. With my golden ticket free sub coupon in hand, I went with a couple of co-workers to our local Quiznos franchise. As we got in line to order the manager passed by us, and he noticed we were all holding the coupons. He told us “sorry, I can’t accept those… I can’t afford that promotion. But, I can give you a free drink.” On our way out we noticed that he did have a sign posted on his door stating that they were not accepting any promotional coupons. We missed that on the way in.
REJECTED! We all looked at each other since we did not have a plan B for lunch. I think we all read each other’s minds though, and we all agreed on the Carl’s Jr. located right next door. I’m sure that Carl’s had a better-than-normal Wednesday of sales receipts.
Another friend a few cities over (the one who sent the link) mentioned that the sign on his local Quiznos stated that they reached their “quota of free subs” and they were no longer participating.
Now, I have a few thoughts for Mr. Quiznos regarding this experience.
Dear Mr. Quiznos:
- If you plan to have a giveaway of free food during a recession, be sure to plan ahead for a larger than expected turn out. This goes doubly important since you have an actual number of subs you want to giveaway!! I’m sure you subsidize each free sub giveaway with some money back to the franchisee that participates.
- It’s bad form to show that you’ve given your participating locations a “quota” of how many free-bees to give away.
- I will probably tell quite a few people about this experience. Definitely more than I sent the link to sign up for the free sub coupon. You run a business, you know the old saying about customers that had a bad experience… I won’t bore you with a lecture.
- Your “Free Subs given so far” ticker on your site is most definitely incorrect. (The reason for the * in the title of this post) There are bound to be more than a handful of customers turned away for this promotion.
- I am now much less likely to return to Quiznos on any occassion, especially the store that turned us away. The image of your organization is tarnished in my eyes.
- Thanks but no thanks. I’ll opt out of having my email address in your marketing database.
Now, you may be saying “Neil, it’s just a sandwich… chill out!”. To me, it’s them offering something for free, then tap-dancing around the offer. If it’s only at participating locations, and each of those locations have a quota of how many free subs to give out, then along side the Free Subs ticker on their site they should have a “Find a location that still has free subs available” tool.
Don’t thank me, Mr. Carl’s Jr… thank Mr. Quiznos.
Here’s another take on these shenanigans. And props to Brett for the logo idea, I saw his and was inspired.
UPDATE: After submitting a complaint on the quiznos.com web site, I received an email from a Tracey Markow, who appears to work for a marketing agency that works with Quiznos. While I appreciate that the marketing arm of Quiznos is actively reaching out after my complaint, (and I’m impressed that they took the time to follow my link and read my thoughts) I’m even more agitated by what I’ve learned about while reading the many writings about Quiznos in the past few days.
This site has a good little nugget of info. Quiznos requires its franchisees to buy their ingredients through corporate… AND, they were expecting the frachisees to foot the bill for the free subs. In essence, only Quiznos corporate stands to make any real profit from the promotion.
Here’s what Tracey wrote:
Hi Neil, I saw your post on Wednesday (on thebernharts.com) regarding the Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway. I’m working with Quiznos, and I’m sorry to hear that you had such a difficult time redeeming your coupon for a free sandwich. I’d like to share you with our response to those, like you, who had trouble using their coupons:
The response to the Quiznos Millions Subs Giveaway has been nothing short of overwhelming. That’s great, right? Right… but given that we have had over a million consumers respond in only three days, there are a handful of people who have reported some problem redeeming their free sandwich. If you’re one of them, please let us know right away by emailing millionsubs@quiznos.com. We’re working hard to address every issue very quickly.
And, if you weren’t quite fast enough the first time around, there’s still a chance to win a free-subs-for-a-year gift card through our Hometown Heroes promotion throughout the month of March. Check out www.millionsubs.com for details.
Please feel free to use the millionsubs@quiznos.com email address. I truly hope this is helpful!
Have a great weekend.
Best Regards, Tracey Markow | SEO Specialist: Link Building
I don’t think I want to contact them any further. They will more than likely send me some sort of voucher for free food at a Quiznos. And who will that hurt? The franchise owner, who will likely not get any money from corporate for that free food, and would have to use the ingreedients purchased from corporate.
It’s safe to say I’m done with Quiznos.
