Sometimes companies make money in spite of themselves. About a month ago, I sent an email inquiry to the loyalty program associated with one of my airline reward programs….
They were promoting a new program encouraging me to build my air mileage by participating in online research surveys. Here’s what their email said:
You’ll earn currency by participating in online market research surveys that have been pre-screened to match your interests. Then redeem your currency for [miles]!
The offer arrived on November 8 and I sent them an online inquiry on November 9 (using their Web site fields) to ask a question before I committed. If it wasn’t too time-consuming, earning mileage quickly to visit my friends in Canada had a positive appeal.
I finally received a response yesterday (December 4). The emailed answer had two errors in it which I’ve bolded for you:
Good Morning,
Thank you for contacting.(contacting whom?) Each survey opportunity is unique. The survey invitation will contain both the length of the survey and the amount of credit your will receive upon completion. If you have any other questions or concerns please contact us.
So, not only did the reply have errors – definitely sending a negative impression – it arrived almost a month after my initial inquiry. What do you think the odds are that I can remember any aspects of this promotion? I can’t even remember what I did yesterday… let alone the details of a marketing promotion I received last month!
Maybe the whole idea is to capture a response immediately, like a used car or high-pressured timeshare sales pitch. I, however, do not work that way. Maybe because I’m cynical, or maybe because I’m a marketer. I like to do my due diligence. So, I did and the loyalty company dropped the ball big time!
About a month ago, a local promoter advertised a conference for entrepreneurs at a posh hotel. The keynote speaker was an internationally known business author. I attempted to register online to take advantage of the early-bird pricing. When the process failed after three attempts, I emailed the linked contact and got no response.
Needless to say, if I have to work that hard to give people my money, I lose interest. After a few weeks, I read about the event in The Business Journal and decided to contact the organizers to tell them about my experience. Here I was, an interested participant, money in hand, and no way to register. Again, no reply to that email, too.
Bottom line: if you want customers to respond to a call to action, set up the infrastructure to respond to their inquiries! It never fails to amaze me how this obvious component to branding and customer service is so often overlooked.
Yes, mistakes happen… but when you try to bring it to a business’ attention and they contact you too late or not at all, it leaves a bad taste.
Elaine,
Your example is all too common. Here, from as article I wrote this past summer, is some data supporting a horrible business response performance:
“In a study conducted by Benchmark Portal and sponsored by eGain Communications Corp., the cross-industry response rate (all verticals) of 41 percent shows that businesses in general have a pretty abysmal record. Forty-seven percent of retailers, for example, fail to respond to customer e-mails within 24 hours, against a cross-industry rate of only 61 percent.”
Hi Elaine,
You’ve hit the nail on the head and a very sore spot with customers. I recently published an article in the Marketing Profs newsletter on November 14, 2006, titled: “Brand Loyalty”. In that article, I cited this problem:
‘It’s truly amazing to note the number of companies who continue to acknowledge that outstanding customer service is an absolute ‘must’, and then fail to provide it. Customers continually complain about the lack of responsiveness to their questions or needs, whether they call or email a company. In fact, in repeated surveys, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, since its inception in 1994 at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, has demonstrated that companies have not delivered improved customer service over the past decade. Whether emails or phone messages are slowly or never responded to, unsatisfactory responses to problems given, or expert information lacking: this is a huge, continuing problem.’
This makes us all wonder: when are companies going to heed this problem and do something about it?
Thanks, Lewis and Ted, for your responses. Isn’t it weird that there’s all this data out there, in addition to frustrated consumers, and yet the guilty companies don’t seem to be learning from their mistakes. Pity.
I’d like to see some studies that show attrition rates – percentage of customers lost annually because of companies’ lack of customer service or poor response. I suppose companies wouldn’t be too willing to report those numbers, now would they?
I just finished an 18 city best practices roundtable tour and I am still amazed at how many companies are deficient in this area. Especially with all the valuable statistics out regarding customer loyalty and retention and the lifetime value of the customer.
A superb point well made. Thank you very much