A few months ago, I received a letter from my bank and it seemed important based on what they wrote on the envelope. I opened it and the gist is that I had failed to complete some action and they were asking me to simply sign a document to take care of this issue. The only problem was, it was merely a sales pitch disguised as an official notice. It took several reads to fully understand that the urgency of the note was in no way my emergency. This was my bank seemingly attempting to pimp the seriousness with which I treat my bank notices to try to urge me into a new service. I was angry enough about this that I kept the mailing by my desk and thought that I would write this blog sharing the story. After a while, I decided to ignore it given other work I had to do. My bank is Associated Bank and the promotion is in conjunction with The Hartford.
Yesterday, I received a second "Urgent Reminder" "re: important information" shown at left. At least this one didn't take long to uncover its sales pitch. There were, however, hints of the former strategy. "The enclosed form has been supplied so you can send us this missing information by February 5, 2010", emphasis theirs. The prior note really leaned on this idea that I had missing information that I must supply.
Our world has become very noisy, hasn't it? Sales pitches everywhere. I'm fine with that if you make it clear that it is an "offer", not an oversight on my part regarding my existing business with you. My airline reward programs regularly send credit card promotions, but they generally are easy to spot. I don't like them, but I can sign up or reject/shred them without confusion.
Relationship Equity
While at 3Com, U.S.Robotics or AOL, I understood that our relationship with our customers could be steered only somewhat. The customer had to agree with where we were taking them and our interactions with them should embrace, enhance and honor that agreed upon relationship. Sometimes we went too far and we would alienate them or "spend relationship equity". What is "relationship equity"? If you have an approval/excitement meter, are our customers on the plus side? If so, how far up? Associated Bank has generally been a great bank. Now they have spent some relationship equity with me. They've tipped their hand as to whether they respect me or want to fool me into services. If the service is truly a benefit, then the tricks are unnecessary. Secondly, they misunderstand that given privacy and identity theft issues, a bank's relationship with it's customers should be a blatantly forthright one. You can market to me, but make the envelope a particular color or stamp it with "Promotional". You dont have to follow my advice, but your relationship equity will continue to dissipate.
You might ask, "Did you at least tell them that you were unhappy?". Yes. Right now. I don't have time to track down the right corporate wonk personally and hope that they respect my knowledge of the topic. I'd like them to know, but in the end it is their job to monitor, ask and honor our relationship. HOWEVER, I still like Associated Bank and plan to stay with them, but clearly I wish that they had made a better marketing decision.
How might your business evaluate and honor the "Relationship Equity" concept?
