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A Message for Every Tom, Dick, and … Ruby?
Making messages to customers more personalized is one of the drums being beaten loudest these days, as companies large and small have seen the merit (obvious, it would seem) in moving away from the generic “Dear Valued Customer” greetings of yesteryear and moving towards the at least seemingly more intimate “Dear Mr. Doe”—or even “Dear John.”
Studies show that if the communiqué in question includes detailed knowledge about an individual customer’s account—via recommendations of similar products or an in-depth recognition of past buying habits—the customer usually gets a warm and fuzzy feeling. They may not necessarily believe that the CEO of Engulf & Devour Inc. really is taking a personal interest in their lives, but they can rest assured that the company’s at least paying attention to them.
But what happens when a company sends out an email message to thousands of customers, all with the wrong names? Such a thing happened last week with drugstore chain CVS, when it sent an email to my colleague Elizabeth Glagowski calling her “Ruby.”
“Ruby, Click on the offer below to save $4 OFF your purchase of $20 or more with your ExtraCare® card at any CVS/pharmacy store,” the message enthused. To her credit, Liz laughed it off—she was, after all, familiar with a prior tirade by a certain 1to1 blogger about CVS—and we both chalked it up to a simple error.
But when I got home, I found out the same thing had happened to my wife, who CVS had decided would henceforth be named Cassie. (Her real name’s Rodi, by the way; it’s a long story.) A quick check with other CVS card-holding friends revealed an apparently system-wide similarity: overnight, Matt had become “Eugene,” Jennifer was now “Mary,” and in one very unfortunate incident, Duane had jumped genders and become “Melinda.”
I contacted CVS to find out what was going on; were computers finally running amok? Was this the start of the terrible Skynet takeover as predicted by the Terminator franchise? (Granted, it didn’t seem quite as apocalyptic as the events depicted in The Sarah Connor Chronicles —well, except for Duane/Melinda.) Having been cheerfully ignored by CVS in the past, I was somewhat surprised to hear back within a few hours from Erin Pensa, senior public relations manager for the chain.
Pensa put the incident down to a “data synchronicity issue” (“basically,” she added helpfully, “a technical malfunction”) that caused the name snafu. “This issue was brought to our attention and we have suspended personalization of emails to fix the issue and make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” she promised.
Pensa went on to insist that the glitch affected “a minority and not a majority of cardholders that received the email with this incorrect information,” casting some doubt on my own highly unscientific research. “We know that our customers appreciate personalization when they receive emails and we regret the error,” she went on. “It is very important to us that this information is accurate and we are working to fix this issue so that it does not happen again.”
Whether any of the affected “minority” was outright offended by the incident remains unclear; in my own circle, it was essentially shrugged off. While I’m still willing to bet that these customers will take a more skeptical view of future “personalized” messages, I do appreciate that CVS has taken ownership of the situation and is redoubling its efforts to prevent a repeat performance.
After all, as Ruby, Cassie, and Duane/Melinda can attest, accidents happen.
Another good point, Chris. If they can't afford another few character spaces to include a complete name, they should stick with "Occupant."
Personalization really backfires for me and wife. Our first names have too many characters and are always cut off. Our crazy, exotic names? "Christopher" and "Elizabeth." I'm continuously getting missives that start "Dear Christoph" and, similarly, my wife gets things addressing her as "Elizabet." (Also, no one calls me Christopher besides my mother and she's been dead for 10 years, so that just seems creepy.)
These efforts undercut the marketer's attempts to be "authentic" and turn them around 180 degrees. Surely this can be done better.
Personalization really backfires for me and wife. Our first names have too many characters and are always cut off. Our crazy, exotic names? "Christopher" and "Elizabeth." I'm continuously getting missives that start "Dear Christoph" and, similarly, my wife gets things addressing her as "Elizabet." (Also, no one calls me Christopher besides my mother and she's been dead for 10 years, so that just seems creepy.)
These efforts undercut the marketer's attempts to be "authentic" and turn them around 180 degrees. Surely this can be done better.
Right you are, Ruby...er, Liz. I forgot to include the lack of followup in my post; my wife, what's-her-name, has also not heard back from CVS. I suspect they're trying not to draw even more attention to the situation, but "Ignore it and it will go away!" doesn't seem like such a great idea...
The concept of personalization is great, but when it goes wrong it can go really wrong.
We did a story based on primary research recently about customer loyalty in the retail space. It found that customization and personalization is very important to building long-term loyalty. But, respondents said that customization done poorly actually suppresses relationship strength. So it can destroy any benefit you had going in the first place.
Sure, everyone makes mistakes. But CVS has not sent me any messages apologizing for it. Thanks to Kevin's reporting, I know that CVS knows they screwed up. But they've remained quiet, leaving customers to wonder what's going on at the drugstore chain.
Owning up to mistakes and communicating with customers is another driver of relationship strength. It's one way CVS could make this negative a positive.