Hatrack River Forum: What am I, a full time customer?

This is topic What am I, a full time customer? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :

Here's the email I just wrote:

quote:
To: wecare@proflowers.com
Subject: What am I, a full time customer?

Hi ProFlowers.com,

You know, I thought I was just ordering a bouquet for mother's day. Then, you tempted me with the chance to win something so I filled out some survey or something.

It's taken me a while to figure what's really going on.

Since then I've received what seems like dozens of emails from you, your partners, your third cousins, and someone who wants me to put her back in touch with you because she knew you in high school. (She couldn't quite remember your full name, she amusingly said 'Poor Flowersdotcom.' Or were you just especially awkward back then? Her name is Suzie and she's on Facebook and wants to hear from you.)

At first I thought to myself "well, I can't really approve of their aggressive email marketing efforts, but I must have forgotten to uncheck the box that says 'email me with offers'" and didn't think much more of it.

But it's become clear that there's a certain demographic I didn't realize existed: full time customer.

An email every month or so would be an ambitious (but still unrealistic) marketing campaign. It would cater to people who really like using an online service to order flowers for special occasions, but have trouble with exotic browser features like "bookmarks" and also don't know how to search their old email, credit card receipts, or personal long term memory. It says "here we are! We're the service you want!" I can understand this, and respect that it might work for some people.

Every week or two would imply some theory of brand management that supposes some kind of Pavlovian influence on customer behavior. Just ring that bell enough times and you'll train people to buy more, and from YOU. Such attempts at psychofinancial engineering are a bit insulting, but I can sort of see the reasoning there, and perhaps your college professors or a slick sales seminar professional, better at it than you are, would be to blame.

But I was mystified at the CONSTANT flow of email. I couldn't imagine that any theory of customer psychology would suppose such a daily chore would actually lead to more purchases, so I kind of ruled that out. Then I asked myself, who buys that many flowers? Even the busiest Lothario wouldn't bother; such a budget would allow for much more direct investment in interpersonal exchanges. What else?

But it's clear: there exists a customer segment that wants and needs constant advice and assistance with purchasing flowers and other silly items. That's the only plausible explanation for keeping their inboxes rife with special offers from not only you but every brand you own and/or share customer information with. I suppose it could consist of administrative assistants for companies with lax expense policies or even rich people with a peculiar hobby. I don't really care.

The mystery I do care about is how you mistook me, a guy who orders flowers online exactly three times in 10 years, for such a full time customer. How'd I land in that segment? I don't expect you to tell me. It could be something as mundane as a code bug, or something as amusing as anachronistic information management techniques that allowed for a single human error. Maybe something truly WTF, like fuzzy logic that infers things from the card message and time of day. However it happened, I'm sure it's confidential information, not the sort of thing you would share with a curious customer. I'll have to be content with my own musings.

More importantly, I am at your mercy. I don't want the emails. I don't remember how I signed up for them. And I'm getting them from so many different DBAs and possibly different corporations (all of which remind me of that particular order, mind) that there's no clear way to opt out of all of them without a protracted effort.

So I ask you to trust me: I'm not a full time customer. I don't want to buy flowers or give you my opinions on buying flowers on a daily basis. I don't have the money, so you can't even mold me into that demographic however clever and insidious your sales strategy. Please take my word for it, and remove me from your database. And please take me off every email list you put me on. It's on you to contact all those other companies to make that happen. If this is an arduous task I beg you to undertake the effort on my behalf anyway. It only seems fair.

Kind regards,
Former flower buyer, Keith Henderson

If they respond, I'll post it here.

Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :

Nice email. I hope they read it.

I don't know if this will do anything, but I just went to their website, found the "Sign up for email savings" field, and entered "wecare@proflowers.com". I know it's a long shot, but maybe their customer service inbox is being filled with spam as we speak.

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

I like that, Speed.

I probably would have changed scifi's penultimate sentence to something along the lines of "If this is an arduous task, you should have considered this before selling my contact information to everyone on the planet." But then again, I despise spam mail with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :

Count me sincerely disappointed in their reply:

quote:
Dear Keith,

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience our mailings have caused you. Your name has been removed from our list, but this change may not be reflected for one to two weeks.

Please let us know if you have any further concerns regarding this issue.

Again, we are sorry for this inconvenience.

Best Regards,

Sarah Brown
Customer Service
www.proflowers.com
Send love, not like. Send ProFlowers.

Not a hint of defensiveness. Also, no appreciation for the effort I put into my complaint. *sigh*

Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :

Honestly, what did you expect?

Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :

What I got. But it's like going to the DMV. I'm still disappointed even when it goes exactly the way I expect. [Wink]

Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :

I note that they said nothing about whether or not your name would be removed from the lists of their affiliates.

Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :

See, that's why I usually sign up to things with my email addresses of "instantlydeleted@..." or "spam@...".

Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :

Having spent many years in email customer service, I think it's safe to say that the rep who replied to you:

A) Was either afraid to acknowledge the creative side of your email because she might get in trouble for varying from the standard template, or didn't want to vary from the copy/paste template anyway because there's an emails/hour goal to meet.

and

B) Has forwarded your email to her friends for a good laugh, and possibly has it printed out at her desk. [Big Grin]

--Enigmatic

Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :

I vote B)

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

It's not an either/or, Kama. And while I don't have the years of experience Enig has, I agree that both are likely.

Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :

I have spent the last 10 years working in an email-oriented customer support organization, so I fully agree that either or both could be true. (Luckily for me I've been supporting the operations rather than being personally beholden to those email productivity targets for most of those years. It was always frustrating to have to knowingly do less for customers than I felt they deserved because I had to help 10-14 per hour.)