Sympathy for the Gatekeeper

In Sunday’s Oregonian, Steve Duin’s column takes the Army National Guard to task for a deceptively-packaged direct mail campaign. According to the column, the envelope appeared to be a credit-card solicitation. Upon opening, the recipient finds a piece of plastic that is “not a credit card. This is money in the bank.” The pitch implies that there’s up to $60,000 to be had by signing up for the National Guard.

At least one of these pieces went to a 14-year old boy, whose parents tipped off Duin.

As the parent of another 14-year old, I find this more than a little alarming. Especially since the solicitation asks for the target’s cell phone and email address. It’s my job as parent to screen these sorts of things and decide what offers he gets to consider. I can’t keep the outside world away from him — I can only slow it down. When I was a kid, if someone wanted to contact me he had to call the house, where the phone would probably be answered by my parents. Now, a cell phone allows anyone who gets the number to cut me out.

On the other hand, I’m more inclined than Mr. Duin to give the Guard a little slack here. Although the mail piece was definitely over the line of decency, they have a few things in their favor:

1. A firm spokesperson was adamant that if the kid had filled out the form, the name would not have gone to a local recruiter, because it’s against the law for them to talk to 14-year-olds. So this is not the first wave of a campaign aimed at high school freshmen — it was more likely an honest mistake.

2. Unlike the tobacco companies (also mentioned in the column for some deceptive offers), the National Guard represents the good guys. They do a lot of good in the state, and that mission will continue whatever happens in Iraq. I don’t think anyone would argue that they shouldn’t be recruiting new members.

2. Because of Iraq, it’s a whole lot tougher to recruit now than it used to be. And a lot of people who might have listened to a recruiter’s pitch before now won’t even come to the phone or open a straighforward mail piece.

3. Which leaves the Guard with this question — how can we get a conversation started?

Unfortunately, the answer they chose — get ’em to open the envelope by disguising it as something else — wasn’t the right one.

But similar techniques are used by direct mailers all the time. We’re all looking for ways to get past the screener, and get our prospects to pay attention to our message. We do it — most of us, anyway — because we believe we have something of value to offer, and that the prospects will come to the same conclusion if we can just get them to talk to us. In its misguided way, that’s all the National Guard was trying to do.

In this case, the Guard is the marketer, and my kid (who eventually will be be old enough for a recruiter to call him legally) is the prospect. I, for once in my life, am the gatekeeper. And I resent anyone who tries to get past me using deception or tricks.

This is a great opportunity for those of us in the persuasion business to look at our efforts from the other side of the reception desk.

What Else Would They Buy?

I just got back from a guitar workshop led by Robin Nolan. Robin’s a terrific musician and a good teacher. But he missed a real opportunity at the workshop.

The 6-volume Robin Nolan Gypsy Jazz Songbook series is considered the “essential text” by students of the genre. Robin’s also written several other well-regarded guitar books. I own volumes 1-3, and brought cash to buy the rest of the set. But he didn’t have any of the books with him. So he lost about a hundred bucks in incremental revenue from me. Multiply that lost opportunity by the other dozen students in the class, and you’ll have an idea of how much he could have made if he’d brought books to sell with him.

A Customers in your store or on your web site may have come for a specific item. Some of them — not all, but a significant number — could be upsold into related items or services. Some examples:

On the web, Amazon always offers something extra under the heading “People who bought [your item] also bought…”.

When you buy a suit from Men’s Wearhouse, their salespeople always lay out a selection of shirts and ties that match the suit. Not everyone bites, but a lot of customers walk out of the store with an extra bag full of “stuff.”

What else would your customers buy — if only you made the offer?

Tips for Creating Loyalty

Although I subscribe to Business Week, I somehow missed this article on creating and maintaining loyal customers. The folks at Church of the Customer Blog caught it and provided the link.Their original post appears here.

To me, the most powerful tip had to do with some of the things we’re tempted to do in order to sneak a few extra profits:

Don’t treat your customers as if they were expendable. Companies that break the Golden Rule by misleading, coercing, and disrespecting their customers effectively turn them into detractors. Examples in today’s world are countless, but they include nuisance fees and hidden charges, poor in-store service, and dreaded automated customer help lines. Such mistreatment causes customers to switch to competitors, cut back on their purchases, and, worst of all, warn others to stay away from the company.

My favorite recent example was the “spa use fee” that two different Scottdsale hotels saw fit to add to my bill at a conference. $15 a night in one, $13 a night in the other. In their “defense”, it was in the fine print in my reservation after I booked it. But geez, guys, if you’d told me it was $154 a night I would have paid without complaint. Telling me it’s $139 and then sticking me is dirty pool.