These days any retail outlet that you visit, is eager to dole-out a 'membership-card'. That membership card shall accumulate points when you shop and shall mean some rewards and so on... Knowing very well that in this era of competition and fickle consumer-loyalty, these cards are a way to 'engage' with the customer and ensure repeat footfalls, I have also been gladly taking these cards as they were offering it to me free of cost and there was no harm in accumulating some points, if I decided to shop in that store the next time around. However one of the hyper-marts that I visited not so long back offered me a similar membership card but wanted to charge me Rs. 200/- for the same. I politely refused and asked the salesperson, that if they are so eager to make me a member-customer, why they should expect me to pay for the same. The sales guy made an unsuccessful attempt to explain it to me that this is only one time payment and then I stand to gain etc. etc. but I did ...
Engaging and Winning People Within and Beyond Organizations.