Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
You Overestimate Your Relationship With Me
Share
Charm Tips by Ian Whitworth
Articles

You Overestimate Your Relationship With Me

September 10, 2018
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth
https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Email-Top-10.mp3

Audio version 5’30” save yourself the pain and inconvenience of reading.


Want an exciting time-saver “hack” for booking restaurants?

It’s a disruptive approach that bypasses conventional technology.

Book on the phone. It takes less time than filling out forms, and it will save you literally hours of sifting through restaurant spam and unsubscribing.

I just executed a brutal unsubscribe massacre on about fifty restaurants after my inbox became a solid wall of “Book Early For Fathers Day!” spam. These are all restaurants I’ve been to, that I mostly like, and would be OK with getting the occasional message from if they had something exciting for me, preferably an offer that included free drinks.

But what sort of perverted belief is it that someone who has made one online booking wants an eternity of weekly self-focused e-blather?

The e-Blast Delusion

There’s only so much email-worthy material you can generate, even if you’re a huge and thrilling brand. I particularly enjoy hearing marketing people talk of sending an “e-blast”, all that explosive, rocket-thrust imagery for a flat-footed little message that generally passes unnoticed on its way to an unmarked spambox grave.

This week I got an email from a restaurant I’ve been to once, with this subject line:

I’m sure you do. And do you think you could write that urge in any more of a creepy stalker kind of way?

If we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that businesses can’t be trusted with your personal information. I’d buy from a brand that said We Want To Know Less About You just to reward their good manners.

This overestimation of how much people want you involved in their lives is a deeply annoying part of business. Businesses need to earn it, not send demand-y emails.

High-end hotels do the personal details thing well by noting down what you like and repeating it next time you visit. But that is information gathered in person by nice people trained in service skills, not bulk-harvested in Mailchimp.

The New Spam

Not that hotels are innocent of systematic email harassment. Customer satisfaction surveys are the new spam, and anyone who travels a lot knows the feeling.

There is no tired toddler so needy as the hotel you stayed in last week that wants you to do its customer satisfaction survey.

“Your last chance to fill out our survey”, the third email I got from a global hotel chain after a one-night stay. Last chance or what? I’ll be blacklisted from their hotels?

So many businesses do this to an insane level. It would be fine if there was any intention to act on it, but usually there isn’t. It’s just data harvesting to fuel some monthly middle management presentation. There is no sense that they actually care about responding to any of it. Often, you get a clear sense it’s actually a punishment mechanism.

The car brand I currently drive is obsessed by these ratings. The sales guy and the service staff – who were all great – ended our transactions with a strange little ritual.

Their voice hushed, their eyes scanned the room to make sure they weren’t being overheard, then they begged me to give them the top survey rating, or they would be in Big Trouble with head office. The fear in their eyes undermined all the confidence built by their half-billion dollar Formula One team.

What kind of insane research design builds emotional blackmail into every interaction with the brand?

Keep It Personal And They Will Respond

If you want to know what your customers think, get someone senior to call them up and ask. Someone who actually has the power to act on the information they get.

If the customer won’t answer a phone call, send a personal email saying something along the lines of:

“Hi I’m the owner of the business, I know you’re busy but I’d like to find out how we did on that last thing we did for you. I know you don’t want to fill out some survey form, could we arrange a short phone call some time? It would really help us to keep improving.”

Not some horrible auto-generated thing.

Most customers will respond to a request for a favor if asked nicely, and as the good old Ben Franklin Effect observes, they will like you better for it.

People Read Listicles So Here’s One

Anyway, if you’re writing customer emails, here is your Top 10 Things To Bear In Mind. (Note the “I” and “me” here are the customer).

  1. What do I get out of it?
  2. How will your product make my life easier?
  3. How will it solve my everyday problems?
  4. How will it save me time?
  5. How will it impress my friends?
  6. Will it get me promoted at work?
  7. If I use you consistently I want free stuff
  8. I want more respect than your other customers and if they’re Platinum I want to be Diamond-Titanium Alloy
  9. It’s all about me
  10. Me me me

Leave out all the stuff about “We’re pleased to announce…”. Nobody cares.

Hope you enjoyed this business infotainment, click here for a short survey on how satisfied you were with your experience.


Why Not Subscribe?

I write a piece like this one every Tuesday.

I’m fully aware of the dangers of writing about how much emails generally suck, then asking you to get them from me, but the people who do get them seem to quite like them.

My favorite review has been: “I have no interest in business at all but Ian somehow makes it fun to read about.”

Imagine how exciting it would be if you were interested in business. So if that’s you, drop your email address here. You’ll never get anything more than one article a week.

Also if you liked this you might enjoy Business Survivor: Win The Disruption Wars.

September 10, 2018

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Articles

Why we dropped a 15-year supplier relationship

June 6, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

It's one, simple, obvious thing that loses you the client. This week: what that is, and how to avoid doing it yourself.

Read More
June 6, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Articles

Wobbegong Tank: why your business pitch gets rejected

January 23, 2023
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Two Code Red alerts that make us run away from angel investments as soon as we see them

Read More
January 23, 2023
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Dale Carnegie
Articles

Why You Should Read An 85-Year-Old Business Book

August 16, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People is an essential reminder human nature doesn't change, whatever the tech boosters say.

Read More
August 16, 2021
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
My Worst Presentation Ever
NEXT POST →
Marketers: Listen To Frontline Sales People

4 Comments

on You Overestimate Your Relationship With Me.
  1. Laura Bradley
    September 14, 2018 @ 2:43 am
    -

    Hahaha! This is your funniest one yet. And so true. I’ll never forget the time a restaurant asked what I thought of a meal, I gave an honest answer and they ignored it. What’s the point if you’re not gonna take on the feedback?

  2. Ian Whitworth
    September 14, 2018 @ 8:54 am
    -

    Yep it’s just another box ticked in the process, any answer like yours is outside the flow chart

  3. Catherine White
    September 21, 2018 @ 7:54 am
    -

    That was so much fun I listened to it twice. Unfortunately very true, including your ‘the new spam’ observation.

  4. Ian Whitworth
    September 22, 2018 @ 6:19 am
    -

    Thanks Catherine! On the upside I just checked into a hotel and there was an “opt out of satisfaction email” box on the checkin form 🙂

FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Too much testosterone: please, enough about Navy SEALs
    October 31, 2022

    Nothing against Navy SEALS, but my job doesn’t involve much amphibious warfare. Neither does yours. Give it a rest, white collar office guys.

  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
You Overestimate Your Relationship With Me - Undisruptable