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Jan 17, 2012
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Target Marketing magazine presents:
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C.R.M. (Customer Relationship Misery)
The Utter Incompetence of TD Bank and T-Mobile/Android
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In late 1945, the father of a schoolmate returned after serving as a lieutenant on Admiral Bull Halsey’s staff during World War II in the Pacific to find that his wife had run off with an older rich guy. The affair did not last and the wife (who was also very rich) pleaded with my friend’s father to take her back “for the sake of the children.”
He agonized over the offer and decided against it. As he said to me many years later: “If you walk into a dark room and get hit over the head with a two-by-four, you’re a damned fool to go back into that room.”
His words were etched in my brain.
For example, I once bought a pair of grey wool trousers from Jos. A. Bank Clothiers. I have always had a dreadful body and everything I buy needs some alteration. I wore the pants once and they dug cruelly into my lower parts—fore and aft. I threw them out. They were my second purchase from Jos. A. Bank—my first and my last.
Jos. A. Bank Clothiers are advertising all over cable television here in the East, and the commercials are like fingernails on a blackboard.
However, my experience with Jos. A. Bank was nothing compared to how TD Bank and T-Mobile/Android manhandled us on our trip to Moscow last month.
Editor's Note: Beginning in February, Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense will be delivered to you in the Today @ Target Marketing e-newsletter. While the content and format of Business Common Sense will remain the same, it will come as the main story in the Feb. 14 issue of Today @ Target Marketing. If you already subscribe to Today @ Target Marketing, you'll simply get one e-newsletter instead of two. If you are not subscribed to Today @ Target Marketing, you will receive only the issues that contain Business Common Sense.
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Takeaways to Consider
Marketing Takeaways
- Note to TD Bank and bankers everywhere: It’s terrifying to have no access to cash 4,700 miles from home in a country that is not particularly credit card friendly, where all signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet and few people speak English.
- If you offer something called “24-Hour WOW! Service” and no one answers the phone, you are a world-class jerk.
- When an employee guarantees that something will work—and it doesn’t—your brand is instantly trashed.
- Old (pre-Internet) Rule: “A delighted customer will tell three people; an unhappy customer will complain to an average of 11 people.”
- Rule in the Age of the Internet: “A customer has the power to tell 2 billion Internet users in the world about being hit on the head with your two-by-four. Facebook, Twitter and Google will help spread the word. And it will be in Google forever.”
- Incompetent internal people can inadvertently trash your brand. Train them. Make them experts in all possible contingencies and responsive to customers’ wants and needs.
- Do not let CRM stand for “Customer Relationship Misery.” Instead, make sure it means “Customer Relationship MAGIC.”
- If you have material on the Internet, make sure it’s current. Remember, Google doesn’t update anything. That’s up to you. (See the second image in the media player to the right.)
Overseas Travel Takeaways
- Take a checkbook when you travel.
- Good travel supplies are key. My favorite travel supplies catalog is Magellan's.
- Alert your credit and ATM card companies of your overseas travel plans.
- Carry with you in a safe, separate place (not your wallet) the account numbers of your credit cards and the emergency phone numbers on the back of those cards in case of loss, picked pocket or stolen purse.
- Carry with you in a place separate from your cash and credit cards something other than plastic that can be turned into local currency in an emergency—U.S. Dollars, traveler’s checks, etc.
- Traveler’s checks are dinosaurs from the past. However unlike cash, if they are lost or stolen, you can get new ones. That said, keep records of the serial numbers separate from the checks themselves and always note the ones you have spent, so that you can tell the issuer precisely which ones have been lost or stolen and need replacing.
- We were in Moscow during the anti-Putin protests. Advice to demonstrators (and travelers) from the English-language Moscow Times: Do not carry your passport with you at all times. If you are arrested or caught up in the middle of a demonstration and your passport is taken away, you can have big troubles. Instead, keep your passport in a safe place (e.g., your hotel room safe or the hotel safe). Before leaving on your trip, make a photocopy or scan the first two I.D. pages of your passport (your signature, photo, passport number, address, etc.), print them out and keep a copy in your wallet or purse and another copy in your suitcase.
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IN THE NEWS
Two Google Searches:TD Bank ATM Card internationalYou can use your Visa Debit Card anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted, ... The TD Bank Visa Debit Card makes banking more convenient – anytime, ... T-Mobile International CallingKeep your loved ones close—no matter how far away they are—with international calling to more than 200 countries ...
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To advertise in this e-newsletter, please contact Peggy Hatch, Group President, at (215) 238-5091 or e-mail phatch@napco.com.
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