I recently got an email from a social networking site that bills itself as “”Your address book for life”. (The fact that they don’t rank #1 for this phrase in Google is interesting.)
This email had the subject line “Your profile is missing a photo”. (The account profile was originally created probably two or three years ago.)
Did I hurry up and update my profile and thank them for the reminder?
No, I deleted my account.
Not so much in angry defiance (that would have required too much energy), but more because a service I don’t even use decided to harass into doing more work—for them. They could just as easily have figured out the number of times I’ve logged in in the past year. (It’s probably less than 5).
There are certainly ways they could have enticed me to want to add a profile picture by framing it as some benefit to me. Even if it was a sham, an appeal to my ego and selfishness could probably work. Don’t just shame me into realizing how foolish I’ve been not to upload a picture and I should go do it now. Not exactly what I need. Thanks!
If anything this served as a lesson to me on how to approach a potential customer. Make it easy for them and don’t guilt them into doing something that really doesn’t benefit them in any way.
Make sure the customer is actually getting a benefit from your service and if not, find ways to improve it for them. Don’t lecture your customer that they aren’t using your service right. No one wants or needs that kind of treatment.
Have you gotten ever received one of those emails from message board sites? (You know, the ones which you sign up for, but which suck and you never bother returning.) They are obviously automated and contain something like: “We notice you haven’t been on the site in awhile, can we tempt you back?”
And that’s it.
Please tempt me, by all means, but I’m pretty sure you need something to tempt me with, otherwise you’re just begging.
How about offering me something like, I don’t know, a useful message board? Then I might be back a little more often. Just a thought.
A random, auto-generated email asking me to come back is just not gonna do it.
Sorry, rant mode over. It’s just that it’s too easy to rely on impersonal auto-responders these days and we lose the interactive communication that most internet businesses would do well to nurture. No one can afford to rely on an auto-bot to be their public relations liaison. It takes a human touch.
I guess if they can switch their mind-set and decide that their customers might be worth the trouble (I mean, I am already signed up and given up my email address and everything!), then everyone wins.
This is an opportunity to provide a real communication, which just might tempt me back.
Image Credit (CC License)
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