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Citi Price Rewind Progresses Actual Benefits

How many times have you found yourself checking prices on an item you already bought to make sure you got the best deal?  This fool's errand attempts to reassure you of your purchasing prowess and avoid the dreaded "Buyers Remorse." Credit cards caught on to this activity several years ago and developed a standard benefit called Price Guarantee that promises to reimburse customers for the price difference on purchases they make on their cards.

The funny thing about Price Guarantee benefits, however, is that they are mainly an "Emotional" benefit rather than an "Actual" benefit.   I say this because while cards with this feature are obligated to make good when a customer notifies them, almost no customers actually make the effort to track and inform their bank of a price discrepancy.  Therefore, card companies can market these emotional benefits to acquire new users and encourage large purchases with little fear that customers will actually use these costly benefits.  Other examples of emotional card benefits with very low usage include roadside assistance and extended warranty.

This is about to change, however, with Citi's new Price Rewind offering.  Customers still have to register recently purchased products on www.citi.com/pricerewind, including where and when it was purchased and the price paid.  But Citi has taken a step forward in automating the price search activity and notify the customer if a discrepancy of over $25 occurs.  

 Essentially, Citi is taking ownership of price discrepancy search and notification portion instead of expecting the customer to  search and notify Citi.  This may seem subtle, but it is a quantum change in reducing customer friction on a product benefit.  Given how far price comparison has gone this shouldn't be surprising.  Given historical  behavior from bank's  death by a 1,000 fees approach, it does mark a notable change towards creating a seamless experience that encourages customer loyalty and spend.  

 Image Credit: LifeHacker

Comments

  1. WarrantechFebruary 19, 2013 at 3:57 AM

    Derek I agree this happens to me when I shop online i always take consideration many sites before purchasing any product so that I should get the best in least price

    ReplyDelete

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