For good and evil…

I signed up with a web-based vendor of mailing lists a few months back. It was one of those stand-out experiences. The web site was slick and easy to use. I could profile the data to my hearts content. And, when I down-loaded my purchase, a customer services rep telephoned me to check everything had gone smoothly. Perhaps I’m just a bit sad, but it was the rare sort of experience you can’t help enthusing about and feel driven to tell others. A seemingly perfect virtuous marketing circle – great product, resulting in enthusiastic customer advocacy.

Fast forward a few weeks and I receive an email from the mailing list vendor with a list of other potential offerings. Nice touch I thought. Here’s a company that really knows its stuff when it comes to marketing. Against each offering in the email was a link to get more information. I clicked. The phone rang. It was the mailing list company. I’m not sure the exact pitch but the conversation went something along the lines of ‘you clicked on the link in our email. What would you like to buy?’. Now I don’t know about you but while I had grudging respect for the technology and business processes that make this sort of approach possible, I also feel there’s a fine line between being attentive and stalking. I curtly ended the call and vow never to open another email from them.

Fast forward a few more weeks. I make another purchase. There’s a problem with the data I’ve down-loaded. I call customer support. It’s apparent that they aren’t very interested in resolving the problem. I make a few more abortive attempts to resolve the matter. No joy. I’m no longer an advocate. I’d now crawl ten mile over broken glass just to have the chance to dissuade potential customers from using them. And I’m no longer a customer.

I guess the morals of the story are 1. Be careful how you use technology. It can be used for good as well as evil. 2. Even with the slickest sales and marketing processes the overall customer impression will only be as good as the weakest link.

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