How To NOT Communicate With Your Customers

Here's a great example of how NOT to communicate with your customers.  I recently received the following email from a Webroot Enterprise sales rep ...

From: Christian XXXXX [mailto:CXXXXX@webroot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 12:31 PM
To: Jason Powell
Subject: Webroot Software renewal

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that your subscription to Spy Sweeper Enterprise has either expired or is set to expire in the coming months.  To renew your license please contact either me or your preferred reseller for pricing and renewal information.

Due to the timing of this email, if you have already renewed your license and are receiving this email in error, please disregard this message.  As well, if I have already been in contact with you, please disregard.  If on the other hand you have not yet renewed and are unsure of the expiration date of your license, you can check in the admin console under:

Dashboard/license status/

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely, 

________________________________________________

Chris XXXXXX - Enterprise Sales

Webroot Software, Inc. - www.webroot.com

2560 55th Street

Boulder, CO 80301

cXXXXXX@webroot.com

And here's my email reply back ...

This is a joke right??

You wrote:

1) “your subscription to Spy Sweeper has expired or is set to expire” … So which is it? Your customer management solution doesn’t give you that info? Or did you just not take the time to check? Either is not a good reason.

2) “if you have already renewed your license and are receiving this email in error, please disregard this message” … Hello! I should NOT be getting this email from you in the first place if I already renewed … you should have done your homework already if I have or not.

3) “if I have already been in contact with you, please disregard” … Again, why would you think it’s wise to send this email to anyone that you’ve already been in contact with!?

4) If you are “unsure of the expiration date of your license, you can check in the admin console” … I shouldn’t be unsure. You should be telling me when my contract expires NOT making me go hunt for it!!

Everything about this email smacks of poor customer service and screams “we don’t care about our customers or value their time”. Is this how Webroot communicates with all its customers?

Now, based on your email you apparently don’t know or care if our contract “has expired or is expiring” … but let me assure you that I will NOT be renewing our contract with Webroot.

I’d encourage you to forward my reply up your management chain at Webroot. Perhaps someone can keep this type of communications blunder for happening again. And finally thanks for giving me a great blog post on the topic of how not to communicate with your customers.

Respectfully miffed,

Jason

Jason Powell
IT Director
Granger Community Church
630 E. University Drive
Granger, IN 46530

Part of what made me even more riled up is that I got a very similar email from Webroot last year ... I wasn't as blunt, but I let that dude know too that the email was ridiculous.  Of course I then proceeded to extend our contract another year ... but not this time 'round.  Goodbye Webroot.

And now in contrast I give you the following similar email I received recently ...

 

From: dws@dameware.com [mailto:dws@dameware.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 12:13 PM
To: Jason Powell
Subject: SPECIAL ALERT: DameWare Mini Remote Control maintenance agreement is due to expire

MAINTENANCE RENEWAL NOTICE

NOTICE DATE: 11/6/2007

REGISTRATION #: XXXXXXXXXXXX

ATTENTION: DameWare Development Customer.

DameWare Mini Remote Control Maintenance Agreement for registration # XXXXXXXXXXXX is due to expire on Thursday, January 03, 2008.

Granger Community Church
Jason Powell
630 East University Drive
Granger IN 46530

To ensure that you continue to receive free product updates and upgrades, we encourage you to renew your maintenance agreement today! By renewing the maintenance agreement you will be saving over the regular upgrade price. Be sure and have your registration number available when contacting your sales representative.

For additional details please contact our Sales department by replying to this email.

To calculate your maintenance agreement renewal cost, please follow the instructions below.

Click on this link to open the Software Maintenance Renewal section of our online store.
https://www.dameware.com/sales/store/Default.aspx#3

Insert your registration number into the Registration field and click "Buy Now" button to view the maintenance renewal cost.

If you wish to renew the maintenance agreement online with a credit card, you may proceed to the "Checkout" section of our online store.

Please note: You are not obligated to purchase the maintenance agreement in the online store. Simply remove the item from your shopping cart after you have seen the calculated price for renewing the maintenance agreement.

You may also purchase with a company Purchase Order by faxing your PO with the Registration Number and calculated renewal price to 985-871-7510.

If you have any questions, please contact our sales team at sales@dameware.com

Sincerely,

Sales Team
DameWare Development, LLC.

That's obviously an automated email reminder, BUT it gave me the info I needed and didn't leave me feeling devalued.

This is also a great reminder for us in IT.  Our end users are our customers.  When communicating with our customers let's be sure to value their time and give them them just the info/details they need.

Comments

[Kellen Butler]

I can't tell you how aggravated I get when companies do this.

A former web host of mine still sends me emails once a year telling me my domain is about to expire, and I haven't even had my domain with them for several years.

Maybe I (all of us) should be more proactive in requesting what we desire (in order to be efficient with our time) rather than letting it pass us by.

[Joshua Gregory]

Got the same letter from Symantec about 15 times this month, nearly verbatim wording. It's like they don't want to offend you by telling you that you have expired, and they really really want you to renew.