Email and Customer Experience Failure
Not too long ago, I got the following email in response to an online Golds Gym facility survey that I took almost a month prior. I addressed many issues that I thought the facility had and how they could improve it.
It is nice to get a response and to have my concerns acknowledged in a day and age where many company struggle to understand the opinion of their customers. However, I feel that they failed in execution of this email on in several areas. Below are just a few of the ways in which I feel that they failed:
- Timeliness: I got this email almost a month after the survey. If you really cared about my opinions and feedback then show it by responding in a reasonable manner. If you are going through all the trouble to elicit feedback from you clients, be ready to respond. Something tells me you didn’t think through this all the way to resolution.
- Tell me specifics of how you are going to fix my issues: Telling me that you hired a new cleaning crew does nothing for me. You had a cleaning crew before, how does this change things? What are they going to do that the previous crew didn’t?
- Personalize the email: Yes, I know this will require a little work and five minutes of your time, but weight that against the cost of having to find a new customer who is willing to pay for a VIP membership for his family. When I look at the email it looks like a ‘form letter’ sent to everyone who indicated on the survey that cleanliness was an issue (and just ignores the other issues I brought up). Also, you ask for me to email you back to discuss any concerns I have, but you didn’t even use a personal email, you instead used an email marketing/customer management program and generic email address that feedback into the program. Nothing says we care like hitting to the ‘send to all’ email button.
