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How to Ruin a Customer Relationship with One Email

Posted Under: Jay Today TV
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In today’s episode of Jay Today, Jay Baer talks about how a single email, just one email, can imperil the relationship between a business and its customers.


Hey guys, it’s Jay. Welcome to another episode of Jay Today. As you may know, I do about two of these a week and if you haven’t had a chance to subscribe, I would sure love it if you do that. Go to JayToday.tv which takes you over to the YouTube playlist for these episodes and just subscribe to my YouTube channel and you’ll get a notification each time a new Jay Today episode is uploaded to YouTube. Episodes are always uploaded to my personal Facebook page and to my business Facebook page as well. And starting in a week or so, we’re gonna start taking relevant episodes of Jay Today and putting them as part of the Social Pros Podcast which is a podcast that I run about social media and the Content Pros podcast which is a podcast that I produce about content marketing as well. So you’ll be able to get Jay Today there also.
Today’s episode of Jay Today, I want to talk to you about how a single email, just one email, can imperil the relationship between a business and its customers.
On February 8th, I received this email from LogMeIn. It says, “Dear Jason, we’re happy to announce that on January 31st, 2017,” which was eight days prior, “LogMeIn and Citrix systems GoTo subsidiary completed our merger. For our customers the new LogMeIn will offer best of class capabilities,” et cetera et cetera et cetera, “you are receiving this email because you or your company are a valued customer of GoTo,” and indeed I’ve had a GoToMeeting subscription for a long time and a GoToWebinar subscription for a long time as well.
The email goes on to say, “What you need to know, number one, contract entities may have changed effective January 31st,” which again was eight days prior, “your contract with GoTo may have been assigned to a different contracting entity which can be found in this contracting entity table.” Link to some website, et cetera et cetera.
Point number two, new terms and conditions. “In connection with the merger, our terms of service have changed. You can see a copy of those terms here.” Link to terms and conditions. “By continuing to use and access our services, you are subject to these new terms as of February 1st, 2017.”
So, this is really curious to me. There are new terms of service. And using the service after February 1st binds me to those terms of service. However, I did not receive the email until February 8th. So it seems to me like this email was at least one week late legally. So now, I am bound by terms of service that I didn’t even know existed until a week after the transition was made and that makes me mad. Now do I think there’s something nefarious or bizarre or strange in the new terms of service? No, and frankly I probably won’t even read them, but it still makes me mad that this email was sent a week after the deal closed.
But here’s where it gets great my friends. Here’s where it gets great. Quote, “Our number one priority continues to be delivering great service and a best in class experience to you, our valued customer. If you have additional questions, please refer to our FAQs,” link to FAQs, “and our corporate blog,” link to corporate blog. And now the wrap-up. “Please note that replies to this email are not monitored. Please do not reply to this email. As always, please feel free to reach out to your account manager,” of which I do not have one, “or contact us here care.citrixonline.com. Sincerely, customer care.”
You should not be able to send an email like this and sign it customer care. It should be signed customers we don’t care. This email came from support at citrixonline.com yet it provides no support. They sent this to me via email, yet somehow if I have questions, I can’t use the same email to ask questions?
Under no circumstances, under no circumstances, should you ever send a customer an email and in that same email say, do not reply to this email. Certainly, they have the technology to use email because they just sent me an email. But they refuse to answer the email. You have to use a customer service form or call your account manager, some other cockamamie scheme.
I don’t understand how companies can make a mistake on something so small. By saying, “Oh no, we sent you an email but we can’t reply to an email,” you’re telling me that of the hundreds and thousands, thousands maybe, of customer service representatives of employees of this company. Not a single person, not one person, not a single individual can possibly conceivably be tasked with answering email replies? It’s impossible. It can’t be done, nobody can answer email.
Look. We have to as businesses stop interacting with customers in the way that we as a business find convenient and start interacting with customers in the way that the customers find convenient. And this is a little thing, right? It’s a little thing. But it makes me wonder if this is how they handle the little things, how are they going to handle the big things?
I’ve been a customer for years, and I gotta tell you, I am fundamentally questioning my relationship with this organization because of this one email. And this is self-inflicted. They didn’t have to do this. They chose to do it this way. And that’s on them. Never ever, ever ever ever ever, send your customers an email that says do not reply to this email. It’s ridiculous.
Ironically, Jay Today is brought to you by Emma. Get more from your email marketing. Go to myemma.com. This is not email marketing in the truest sense, but it sure as heck is email and it sure as heck is done poorly.
Below, I want you to answer a simple question. If you were supposed to get this information—contract has changed, terms of services have changed, et cetera—how would you prefer to receive this? Would you prefer to receive it via email? Text message? Snapchat notification? Smoke signal, direct mail, phone call? Let me know, I’m just curious to see what you would prefer. How would you prefer to get this information? I would prefer to get it on time, not a week late. And I would certainly prefer to be able to respond to an email when they send me an email. But we’ve covered that. I want to know, how would you want to get this information.
And I also want to know if you’ve had a chance to subscribe to the show at JayToday.tv and I would also like you to share this email with somebody who needs to hear it or somebody you think already has it covered. Will you do that for me? I’m Jay Baer this is Jay Today, I’ll see you, I don’t know tomorrow-ish, thanks.

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