We are REALLY sorry, now about that hard sell?

Some weeks ago I received the attached message and new credit card form Citicards:

I was not happy to hear that my personal data may have been compromised, but at least I live in a State that requires that a company tell me when such an event happens. In too many places that is still not the case and such an event can be quietly forgotten, more than six years after California became the first state to require such disclosure.

As usual, I’m required to activate the card by phone. I call and my home number is recognized and the activation proceeds smoothly. Till I get the message ‘Please hold for a representative.’ Oh, oh. It’s a cunning move as I can’t drop the call just in case the activation isn’t completed properly.

Turns out that there isn’t a problem with activation, but Citicard – in their misguided wisdom – want to do the hard sell on me. I’m pressured for additional services that I neither want or need. This in response to a major cock up in their systems and processes. Who on earth thought that ANY message other than a contrite apology for all the hassle that comes a credit card number change was a good idea?

Is that how you would treat your customer? I hope not. If one of my clients is ever in that situation my advice is to apologize, be contrite and ask what the company can do to make amends. Not to apply the high pressure sales tactics, with not so much as a ‘by your leave.’

And to add insult to injury, I can no longer download transactions from my Citicard account into Quicken which I use for my business and personal finances. 12 weeks later, I still can’t. ‘Customer Service’ tells me that they don’t know when it will be fixed.

Hey it’s only three months, for a feature that I’ve come to depend on. Fortunately, this is not a card I use a lot, so the volume of transactions can be hand entered, but it is a pain. And each time I have to do that for a monthly reconciliation, I’m reminded about the abysmal customer experience that Citicard makes me go through.

Compare and contrast with the customer experience at my other credit card – American Express – they have invariably done the right thing.

Citibank can send me as much marketing bumf and encouragement to spend. It won’t make me use their card, except when I have no alternative. Oh, and the last statement came with a notification that my APR is now 29+%!!!

Definitely feel like a valued customer!

So, how do YOU treat your customer when something bad happens? Do you go out of your way to make amends? And to make sure that each interaction thereafter reinforces the positives – and doesn’t keep rubbing salt in the sore wound?

Are you SURE?

Where is YOUR advertsing dollar going?

I collected mail from a PO box today and was once again struck how many people did what I did. I struggled to get the mail out of the small box; not because there was a lot of mail in there, simply because of all the unsolicited brochures, mailers, junk flyers etc. They come in a huge bundle and a royal pain in the nether regions.

There are big tables and very large trash bins, as far as I ca see only to serve to sort the wheat from the chaff and to dump the chaff. The bins are invariably full.

Someone is paying big bucks to create, print, and mail these items. And all that happens is they get dumped without a second glance. Your ONLY chance of making an impression (positive or not?) is when the recipient sorts through to ensure that there is no real mail in the middle of this stuff.

Is that how you invest your marketing spend? Do YOU pay for creative, print, mail just to see your investment thrown away?

I hope not, but its worth checking!

Decide who (or what) you are….

Decide, then tell people. Sounds simple, huh?

So why do so many organizations insist on saying who they USED to be? The most egregious example I have seen in a long time is Accretive Solutions.

An aside, that seems like a horribly negative name, perhaps that’s why the keep telling us (on NPR within the last hour) that they used to be Horn, Murdoch, Cole.

Not the biggest of issues you might think. I’d agree, except that they changed their name in mid-2007.

Here we are more than TWO years later, and they are still telling the audience who they USED to be.

Not what they stand for, why I should get to know them, but who they haven’t been for over TWO years. They need a new marketing lead! And their CEO should be firing people. This stuff is not that hard,

You do work hard to define the business you are in, the way you relate to your customers, what your products and services are; and then you tell them the story, over and over again. You do NOT harp back to who, or what, you used to be.

Nobody cares. It’s not that legacy should be forgotten, but there are few, very few, organizations for whom it should, or can, be the marketing route to the future.

I spoke about one of the best name changes I had seen here. As I said then, maybe they were just Lucky….

Accretive Press