Does anyone use a Secretary or Business Assistant??

[C. Charles Hahn]

Groupon will refund the original purchase price of any groupon that expires. It's a coupon - not a gift card which is the distinction they are trying to make in court.

Right, and that's the beauty of it. You set up a Groupon with an expiration date and the number of coupons sold sit there as unearned revenue. If the customer comes in and makes use of the coupon, that portion becomes revenue; if the customer doesn't come in before the expiration date, they refund the coupon purchaser and you're not stuck doing work for bargain-basement prices during your peak season when you have a steady stream of customers coming in to pay full value for your work.



Taking away the ability for businesses to set expiration dates on their coupon offerings makes the service much less attractive since it could come back to bite them if they're not careful. Using it to bring in at least some revenue during a slump is the most beneficial part of the whole business model they have going IMHO.



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[Jpostal]

Back to the secretary deal...a place I worked at used a call center service to answer calls after hours. When a customer calls your number and you dont answer it goes to the 24/7 call center instead of VM. They answer it as if they were actually in your office (Hello, thank you for calling "XYZ" auto detailing, blah blah blah). If you provide them with a basic script they can answer some questions, but mainly they are just taking a name a number for you to call back later. It worked well for us because you capture every lead anytime of day or night.