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Citibank cries wolf (bad customer experience)
This recently arrived in the mail - an envelope from Citibank marked "Important account information":
The envelope contained a solicitation for a new credit card. And I don't own a credit card with Citibank, so this wasn't about an existing account.
Citibank fooled me. This wasn't important account information, it was spam that I never asked for and felt irritated about when I opened it.
The outcome is that I trust Citibank less. And if I ever get another envelope from Citibank - even if it's marked "please don't shred, we're serious, it's really important this time," you can bet it's going straight into the shredder.
Citibank is creating a bad customer experience by fooling its prospective customers - the very people it needs to revitalize the business. How do you think this plays out as a customer experience strategy, long-term?
It's not just Citibank, most businesses are doing this. The irony of the technique is that most banks send actual important information in very plain envelopes; they don't want to alert a potential thief rifling through your mail that it's something important. So PINs, account numbers, passwords, etc. are usually sent in plain envelopes, sometimes not even indicating that they're from financial institutions.
Ugh. I received one of these letters just the other day. In big, bold letters on the front the envelope read: "Critical information inside. Do not throw away." But all that was inside was a credit card offer... with a bank I've never used.
You bet I'll never do business with that particular bank. They're liars and cheats, why would I do business with people like that?
Great example of a post I wrote earlier this month. I called it "Newton's Law of Authenticity."
A brand's communications with us (authentic or not) impact our expectations of future performance. In this case, Citibank is saying, "We're liars, but we have this product you might like. Buy our product and we might lie to you some more."
Check it out the post if you get a chance: http://deliverbliss.com/2010/07/newtons-law-of-authenticity/
I join in your frustration! I experienced a similar situation when I received an "exclusive offer" from a local gym. Once I researched the exclusive offer, not only did I learn of all the hidden fees, but I came to realize their everyday offer was actually a BETTER deal. They touted an "exclusive offer" to bait and switch. Sadly, for those that it worked on, I don't think any of them know that they were actually taken to the cleaners.
All businesses should act ethically and not run scams - be authentic (like Tim said) and show your prospects you'll treat them well as customers, even before you earn their business. And same as said, they won't get my business later because they tried to trick me.
My full blog is here, but that's the gist of it: http://info.livelogic.net/customer-intelligence-project-success/bid/47692/Customer-Acquisition-by-Hook-or-by-Crook
Just another reason why DM is plummeting in response rates. Average tweet on Citibank now generates between 5-50,000 impressions. To get 50k impressions through DM, Citi has to send 2.5m envelopes like this.
I think the problem is that Citi, like most banks, just doesn't understand how to engage customers anymore.
Brett
If you look around, these little falsehoods are everywhere. I sometimes feel like I have the "UX designer's curse" because I am overwhelmed by the B.S. which is so blatant & obvious it makes me angry.
Whenever possible - if they have included a postage paid return envelope - I pack it with assorted junk mail, pizza flyers, etc. that I've received that week (to make it as heavy as possible) and drop it back in the mail box to the offending company. I think the inspiration for this act of guerilla consumerism came from the Seinfeld tele-marketing episode.
I get these all the time from banks. The main unintended consequence is that I now tend to toss EVERYTHING - including my new replacement credit cards(!) - assuming it's all junk. This obviously just costs the banks more $ to replace thrown away cards, which is probably fairly common due to these practices.