Some areas of business cannot be automated
I had an interesting and frustrating event happen over the weekend. I registered for a new email management system that would allow me to send video emails easily. I spent about 6 hours setting up my imported list, adding missing content to the list, creating a Newsletter template, and creating my first autoresponder message for new people added through the web form.
The next morning I logged on to create an email set to go out on Monday and WHAM…My account had been terminated.
What happened? All that time and effort wasted…to say I was unhappy was an understatement.
Guess what I did on Sunday?
I redid everything I had done the day before in MailChimp. MailChimp now allows for YouTube videos to be embedded into email Newletters.
This morning (Monday) I contacted to original company to request a refund and find out what happened. I assumed someone had reported my account as spam (the company sent out the autoresponder meant for the web form registrations to my entire list…not what I had planned). They said there was no complaints but that the account was suspended for content.
WHAT…There was no questionable content in my email. Come to find out they got my account confused with someone else and was sorry for the inconvenience. UNBELIEVABLE!
They could have called…they could have emailed…they could have done a number of things. They chose to terminate me for someones else’s indiscretions.
They lost a paying customer.
Had they handled it differently by not making me redo everything with another company they might have been able to salvage the business relationship.
Customer service cannot be automated…it just can’t. Period.
Treat your customers right and they will treat you right.
