The Marketleap Report
Volume II, Issue #13, July 25th, 2002

Geeks Gone Wild - AdBumb Strikes Out
By Keith Boswell

Respect is a sacred trust amongst those who do business together. Customer service sits in that shrine as the ultimate form of reverence. Value those who patronize you and they will often act as disciples for your cause.

For about the past six months, I have been caught in a whirlpool of outrageous customer service, leaving me feeling waterlogged, tired, and angry.

I've been hassled at McDonald's for driving a foreign car and trying to order their "All-American" value meal. I've been yelled at by a customer service rep for trying to confirm that an order had been cancelled that I placed online. I had someone roll their eyes at me when I tried to order food from their food counter in an airport.

I've had more customer service people stare at me blankly and say, "I don't know, I just work here." This is no joke. It's such a cliche that to hear it repeatedly is like having to go to the dentist once a week. These people get paid to show up everyday, but they don't know why, don't care, and have not observed or learned anything in their time of employment.

When I received an email the other day that caught me off guard I was a bit surprised. Being that I was in a bit of a prickly mood, my response was a little sarcastic but represented exactly how I felt.

The ensuing email exchange is a warped lesson in bad customer service. It seems the rule that the customer is always right no longer applies. All names, spelling, and original messages have been preserved to ensure a proper accounting of this twisted tale.

Original Email:

Dear Friend of ADBUMB,

According to our stats you haven't read adbumb in a while. This letter is to inquire why you are deleting the newsletter without reading it. Perhaps there is something you feel is missing, or maybe you aren't recieving it correctly?

Please get back to me with some feedback -- we want all our readers to read every issue!

Thanks,
-Pesach Lattin

My First Response:

This is very strange because I haven't been deleting AdBumb. I have been scanning over them quickly because I've been busy.

What kind of tracking are you performing that indicates that I am deleting the messages? I am moving them to a folder called AdBumb, but I could change that to the trash if it would work better for your system.
-Keith

Pesach's First Response:

Hmm... i use pixels to determine open rates
-Pesach Lattin

My Second Response:

Thanks for your elusive response. Please unsubscribe me from your newsletter.
-Keith

Pesach's Second Response:

It's not elusive. Tracking Pixels... everyone knows what they are?
-Pesach Lattin

My Third Response:

Sorry, I don't know what that is. Please confirm that I have been unsubscribed from the AdBumb newsletter. Thanks,
-Keith

Pesach's Third Response:

did you subscrige to it? I'm lost now...
-Pesach Lattin

My Fourth Response:

I am subscribed to AdBumb. That's why you contacted me to begin with. I would like to be unsubscribed. I tried to do it from the link in the newsletter but it does not work.

Thanks,
-Keith

Pesach's Fourth Response:

how doesn't it work? I'm curious...
-Pesach Lattin

My Final Response:

When I click the unsubscribe link from a recent issue of AdBumb I get the following message:

We are sorry, but we could not verify you. Please ensure you have not changed the URL provided to update your profile or unsubscribe

Can you please just unsubscribe me from your list? Thanks,
-Keith

At that point, Pesach ended the conversation. My final plea to just please end the pain must have struck a nerve. Over the course of an afternoon, I had received this entire chain. I felt as if I had just engaged in some juvenile taunting on the playground with someone for no reason other than they had bad information.

I was pretty disappointed because AdBumb had been a publication that I enjoyed reading before I got the first email. My response back was tinged with sarcasm. I found it strange that their system couldn't tell the difference between my opening the message and quickly reading it and me just deleting it outright. I thought my humor would come through as I was trying to make fun of their tracking software.

Once the first obviously taunting message came to me, I knew I would never read their publication the same. I had to unsubscribe.

Seeing as how I run this newsletter, I am familiar with the challenges of keeping the audience engaged. But I don't taunt you, my cherished readers, except to draw out feedback about the topics I am discussing. We publish our open rates and click-through rates with each article, both online and in the HTML version of the email newsletter.

We don't contact our readers and ask why they aren't reading the Report. We're just glad you keep your subscription. We average about half of our subscribers actually opening and reading the article each time we publish. We want the newsletter to grow, but not at the expense of distancing the group that keeps us going.

I bring this email exchange into this week's Report because I feel as if I am witnessing the erosion of customer service and respect for customers in all places in society. Now it's spilling over to the web.

What's going on? Growing up in customer service jobs I was always told to respect those that pay your bills. Said in corporate terms - the customer is always right. The actions of others suggest that a solar flare has erupted and reprogrammed vast portions of the active brain waves on this planet.

Each one has now been instructed to simply scoot through their day and do as little as possible to earn their keep. Workers lounge and slouch in a position that we should assume means they no longer care about us or what they are being paid to do.

I've started thinking I'm crazy. What else explains the backlash from an economy increasingly driven by service based jobs and companies?

Customer service is the benchmark for doing business. If you don't get good customer service and you have other options, you will usually head elsewhere because of poor service. Companies that don't support their customers don't stay in business.

I worked for Kinko's right out of college in the computer department. Employees and customers were always asking why copies cost more at Kinko's. The answer was always the same. You pay more because you get more. If something isn't right, they'd fix it. Even if it meant recycling and redoing an order for 30,000 copies because the client realized later they had ordered the wrong paper. The store was always busy.

Companies like this thrive because their customers know even if things go bad, they'll be taken care of. My recent encounters have left me feeling defensive and ready to lash out at those who might push the wrong button.

Am I alone in seeing this happen? What about the rest of you? Do you think customer service and respect for customers is getting worse? Send your feedback to report@marketleap.com and we'll include it in the next issue.

Responses to the last Marketleap Report

Since the last article that focused on the advertising tactics of Gator, a federal judge has issued a temporary injunction that blocks Gator from publishing ads on any of the sixteen websites involved in a copyright lawsuit against Gator. We got some great feedback from a few of our readers about the issue.

What's all the who-ha about? I just click off the ads if I am not interested but oftimes I store for future ref!!
-Eugen

The who-ha Eugen is that companies don't have the right to take over other people's web properties just because they have the technology to do so. Ads in and of themselves are fine. They don't generate the best response rates online, but they serve a purpose and they are a necessary force in today's economy.

Another reader spoke to some of the same feelings I have about this debate.

Greetings from Australia,

I greatly enjoyed your article on the great advertising debate, it's a subject area that always weighs heavily on me. I have been involved in training other web developers and site owners for years and the problems associated with Internet advertising used to be a topic that would stir up great passion - both for and against.

We run a number of sites, one in particular that attracts some good traffic. When I began on the Internet around 8 years ago, I was more a purist and despised trashy advertising. I still despise it, but unfortunately with the costs of running a site such as ours steadily increased and I joined the ranks of webmasters trying to survive and thrive. Have I sold out? To be honest, I'm not exactly sure and it is something that I constantly think about.

We run a few community based sites that contain no advertising at all, the other sites subsidise them. I look forward to the day when I am in a position to create more of these sites, which can only occur through the continuing ad revenue from our primary commercial concern.

I guess my thoughts and feelings can be summed up in an article I published last year.
-Michael Bloch

I would highly recommend reading Michael's article here as it is a great analysis of why advertising in all forms is here to stay. Remember advertising is okay so long as you aren't plastering yourself on top of someone else's ad space.