Discover Card, Please Stop Calling Me!
Yes, I like your company. You’ve always given me great service. I appreciate that when I email you, I get a response from a live person to whom I can respond in turn (something American Airlines just can’t grok.) I’m a loyal customer. I recommend you to others. BUT, please stop calling me. No matter how polite the caller - it’s still a cold call. I don’t need to “consolidate my debt.” I don’t need credit insurance. I don’t want to hear about “special offers” - particularly when I’m eating dinner.
Just because you’ve got my phone number doesn’t mean you should use it for telesales. Ditto my email address. The irony in this, of course, is when a company has the phone number - in fact they insist on you entering in the contact form before it can be processed. Then they don’t use it when you want them to call you regarding a problem or question. (Hello? American Airlines? Yep, you again.)
Just because somebody bought something once from you doesn’t mean they want to get email from you (Hello? Dell? Apple? Amazon? All guilty.) Don’t ask for email “in case we have a question about your order” and then abuse it. (I’ve now unsubscribed from Amazon at least three times. And, each time they automatically re-check the boxes. I’m not that stupid, I KNOW I unchecked and saved the last time I went into my account. Aargh.)
Customer contact can (should) be a great and good thing. This is where a small company can almost always beat a big one. While the big boys are focused on reducing “costly” customer contact, a small business can excel at it. Excelling can be as simple as returning phone calls, making it easy to reach you via email, and treating customers like fellow human beings, complete with brains and feelings. Now, doesn’t that sound simple?
Here’s what Discover should do: Don’t hide a sales call inside a “how are we doing?” call. It’d be a really nice touch if you simply called me to say, “We want to thank you for your business all these years. Is there anything we can do to improve our service?” Now, that’s short, sweet and I might actually give you some good ideas. (And I’d tell people how Discover calls just to check in, not to sell me anything.)
In the meantime, I’ll be unplugging my phone during dinner and “must-see” TV. And I’m checking caller ID before I do pick up.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Sirius satellite radio is another company that needs to learn this lesson.
I’ve actually found Amazon to be very good on this count; you set your email preferences with them, and they follow them to the letter.
I think everybody drank the “increase the value of each customer to us” koolaid and now are convinced that because we use their credit card to buy gas, we want to buy a whole bunch of services from them. Well, it’s good for their bottom line; shouldn’t that be a motivation for us? Um, no.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
John,
Amazon must like you better
(I did finally get off the list.)
I’d add, “delivering more value to the customer” isn’t the same as “selling them more crap.” (We customers are funny - we don’t think it’s our job to make companies profitable.)
And, while we’re talking about gas, I really hate those “friendly” voices that start blaring when I start pumping. Yargh and argh.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I work at Discover Card, and I agree with you, but you should know something:
1. Like any solicitor call, you can always request “Can you take us off your calling list?” and they do. There is an option to do that that we mark immediately.
2. They don’t sell products to you on outbound calls as far as I know. My outbound calls are where I say exactly what you said I should say: “We want to thank you for your business all these years. Is there anything we can do to improve our service?” (People still get pissed no matter what you say.) Request an APR decrease… they can do that immediately in a few ways, but they don’t really have the ability to bargain with you… Discover gives them the deals.
3. Remember that the people who call you on outbound are just people trying to get money… Discover pays them well and tells them what to do. It gave me a new perspective. There was a Seinfeld routine where he would yell at a solicitor, but now I see that as harsh. It’s the upper-management you should be mad at. Not the people who sit at call centers for 8 hours a day to pay for college.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I do request getting off the list. And, I do my best to be polite to the caller - they are, after all, trying to do a job. So, I’m not “mad” - just wish Discover would grok the new marketing.
And, the outbound calls I’ve received have all been trying to get me to do something.
And, I don’t request an APR decrease - inbound or outbound - since I pay the bill in full every month. So, not sure where that reference comes from.