Imagine this scenario: You enter a restaurant where you’re greeted by a host who acts like they’d rather be anywhere else. Your server carelessly tosses menus at you and rushes you to order. Every other staff member there is mean-spirited and won’t hesitate to insult your entire existence just because you’ve asked for extra ketchup. Finally, you pay the bill and leave a good tip for your server, who rolls their eyes and shoos you towards the exit.
One might chalk this up to a terrible night out filled with unhappy customers and bad customer service. But at Karen’s Diner, people pay for this exact type of treatment – and this type of gimmick marketing is earning them strong online reviews from customers.
And if you look at their reviews online, their bad customer service doesn’t result in unhappy customers; it’s what’s getting them positive online reviews. No, this isn’t a new trend where a bad customer experience is rewarded. This is a combination of gimmick marketing, experience marketing and branding strategies that many businesses can take a page from.
So while restaurants and other business owners might not want to take a page from Karen’s Diner when it comes to bad customer service, here’s a thing to remember when building your brand.
Gimmick Marketing and Experiential Marketing: What Goes Into Karen’s Diner’s Success?
How does a restaurant designed to provide bad customer service get such positive feedback from its customers? We can narrow it down to three main factors: gimmick marketing, experience marketing and how one’s branding affects their reputation.
Marketing Gimmick Explained
A marketing gimmick refers to a business’s plan, tactic or strategy to attract attention. It’s designed to make a brand stand out from the competition long enough to take that attention and convert it into sales. This can be done through consumer behavior, engagement and other tactics.
But what is a marketing gimmick supposed to do in the long run? Unlike branding, a marketing gimmick is only designed to capture interest for a short while. Some brands can perform a marketing gimmick and drive that attention to the next stage. Whether that’s brand awareness, website visits or enticing customers to convert, they can leverage that attention to their business’s bottom line. Others, however, use too many gimmicks to overshadow the actual product or service. As a result, it gives off the wrong message or doesn’t do much to boost the business’s goals.
Experience Marketing Explained
On the other hand, experience marketing or experiential marketing is a strategy where a brand creates immersive experiences for customers. Rather than traditional advertising, brands create experiential moments for their customers.
In the case of Karen’s Diner, experiential marketing comes through the experience of being served by someone so rude that it’s almost comical. It’s an interactive event where customers are immersed and engaged in the experience, and they can form their own experiences that they can share with others.
3 Things Your Business Can Learn from Karen’s Diner
You might not want to adopt their staff’s attitude, but there’s a reason why people visit their diners for the negative customer service experience. Let’s look at the top three lessons we take from watching a gimmicky business like Karen’s Diner, and what you can implement in your business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy.
1. Gimmicks Can Only Take You So Far
Gimmick marketing can be compared to those dancing inflatables many business owners place outside their brick-and-mortar stores. They’re eye-catching tools that capture people’s attention but remember that no one has shopped at a store because of those inflatables alone. Visibility is crucial, and gimmick marketing can get you those 15 minutes of fame. But how you turn visibility into engagement and sales is the next step many tend to forget.
The gimmick from Karen’s Diner is obvious, but it works because they know there’s a limit to how far it attracts customers. For instance, the chain has rules that protect both staff and customers, such as banning racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist or body-shaming comments from both customers and staff.
One 2023 study found that customers view the restaurant positively because of these ethical limits on the gimmick. Additionally, all branches of Karen’s Diner also adhere to their local health and safety codes that apply to all restaurants. So despite the treatment you can expect, they never go too far with the gimmick of creating a genuinely bad customer experience.
2. Customers Want to Know Exactly What They’re Getting
People come to Karen’s Diner for the experience of being served by someone unpleasant. But if any other restaurant tries to provide the same level of bad customer service, they will likely achieve negative customer experience that results in unhappy customers and negative reviews. Customers step into Karen’s Diner knowing their gimmick very well, so rudeness is expected. Other restaurants, however, are expected to provide regular service.
Depending on your branding, customers have certain expectations about what they experience from doing business with you. People go to high-end shops expecting high-quality products and family-friendly entertainment centers for age-appropriate features. Regarding your online presence, how you present your business gives customers an idea of what to expect. And if your brand doesn’t deliver to these expectations, that’s where customer dissatisfaction comes in.
Unfortunately, factors out of your control can also set customer expectations. Your website might claim to provide the best products or services, but when reviews say otherwise, potential customers will likely take your claims with a grain of salt. Through branding strategies and careful brand reputation management, you can set the expectations that position your business for success.
3. Build Your Branding – and Keep It That Way
When it comes to branding, consistency is critical.
Karen’s Diner builds its branding off the internet meme of “Karens” – unpleasant men and women who are publicly antagonistic towards others. And while experiencing treatment that typically leads to a bad customer experience for fun is not everyone’s cup of tea, their consistent branding has led their business to go viral.
Branding has to be consistent for people to recognize it. Through brand consistency, your business can:
- Stand Out From the Competition: Your brand separates your products, services and business from your competitors. This answers the “why” for potential customers about why they should choose your business over others.
- Influence Customer Perception: One factor that affects branding is what your customers and other stakeholders say about your business (such as negative customer service experience and social media comments). However, by creating a consistent brand, you can influence what they say and shape their perception of your brand.
- Build Online Following: Social media has become crucial for establishing a consistent brand through content. With consistent messaging, you can engage with your target audience and build a following interest in your brand.
This applies to both B2C and B2B marketing strategy plans. Keeping consistent branding is an effective way of letting users know what to expect to avoid customer dissatisfaction.
Solutions for Your Online Brand and Reputation Management With Rize Reviews
At Rize, we understand the importance of your online brand and reputation. When managing users’ expectations of your brand, you can prevent customer dissatisfaction through a smooth marketing strategy that transitions from gimmick to the next step of their purchase.
This lesson in branding is essential as negative customer experience can have a much more significant effect on your business, especially when shared online. With more users making their decisions based on what they find online, an unfavorable online presence or overwhelming negative customer service experience reviews could be what costs you both new and existing customers. This is why brand and reputation management is necessary for businesses that want to achieve a better online brand.
Our brand reputation management services can help you improve your online presence and mitigate the effects of negative customer experience reviews and other negative feedback. We can monitor review platforms, respond appropriately and take steps to improve the way the public perceives your brand. Our team has extensive experience working directly with businesses or digital marketing agencies searching for white label brand reputation management services.
Improve your branding strategies with the review professionals on your side. Get in touch with Rize Reviews today to request a free demo of our services.
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