Marketing by Permission Marketing by Permission Getting business advantage and great return on investment from top quality sales and marketing requires attention to your customer's needs and to the law. That's what this is all about.. Other topics include data privacy in all its forms. Articles
Wondering where some posts have gone?
2008-03-04 14:29:00 Well, there comes a point when discretion is the better part of valour. I do not like anonymous threats. I despise them. But I also recognise that folks who hide behind them do not always play with a straight bat.So, Trading Standards and Watchdog will be very happy to continue unveiling scams. More About: Posts
My 60 Seconds of Fame
2008-02-29 11:39:00 This is such fun. I've just been asked by the Bracknell Standard newspaper to be a part of their 60 second interview. The questions are fun, light, and part of local community making. Some of them made me scratch my head, too1. What is your favourite food?2. What is your favourite holiday destination?3. What was the last book you read?4. What is your favourite TV programme?5. What was your first pet and its name?6. What is your favourite film?7. What painting or photo do you have on your wall or desk?8. Who would your ideal dinner guests be?9. What car do you drive?10. What is your biggest regret?11. What makes you smile?12. What was your first job?13. What do you like about Bracknell?14. If you won the National Lottery, what would you do?Unless it gets spiked, it comes out next Friday More About: Fame , Seconds
Continuing the saga of BT and the Master Socket
2008-02-24 11:41:00 As one of my two loyal readers you may remember my saga with BT Customer Service(!) over my "Master Socket ". I had thought it was all over. I'd been told "Oddly a charge may appear on your bill, but all you have to do, if it does, is call customer service and that charge will be cancelled.So, when the charge appeared on my bill in January I was not at all concerned to see £184 + VAT at 17.5% for 5 minutes to change the socket. As a ee it was excessive, but I knew I was not going to have to pay it.I called Customer Service, who duly logged the call. They made no promises, they just logged it.Today, Sunday, at 10:30am I had a call from BT Complaints Department. "Mr Trent, you will have to pay this charge.""I'm sorry, which part of BT are you calling from?""We are an NDM""An NDM? I'm sorry, it's a very bad line and I can hardly hear you." it was a bad line"We are in India."Good lord, I hadn't heard that! One up for outsourced offshore call centres in unaccented English the... More About: The Master , Saga
Email Subscription List
2008-02-14 14:19:00 Way down on the left hand side is an email subscription box. Why?Well, it's way down because I put it too far down. So, thank you to both of you who found it! I'm going to try to remember how to move it higher up!Meanwhile I'm putting it in this post.I haven't majored on it that much because it has only just started to work properly, but it's a great way of getting this blog as a weekly digest, on Mondays in the afternoon (UK time)You can always unsubscribe, and I NEVER use your email address for anything without your explicit permission, so it's safe. More About: Email , List
Getting round the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations?
2008-02-14 13:20:00 This is quite interesting and may be a new technique for getting round the PECR.The cold call started by thanking me for "your enquiry on our website."I had never previously been to their website. However the caller told me that there was an aerial picture of my house there with illustrations of solar panels.The caller had my name, address and telephone number, allegedly from the website. BUT I have never entered it.I mentioned this and they suggested it was a hoax. While this is perfectly possible, it is not probable.My suspicion is that someone enters the data as if they were me, doing it under the instructions of either the company or of one of its calling agents, and that they do this in order to circumvent the TPSIn terms of true marketing this is pointless because it turns a warm sales lead into a cold call, but idiots abound in life.Anyone else had anything like this? I'm alerting the UKIC, and I suggest you do, too, if you get such a call. More About: Electronic , Communication , Privacy , Regulations , Round
Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust takes patient care steps
2008-02-12 18:34:00 It was a mixed blessing to meet the Epsom & St Helier NHS Trust . I met them when my mother was hospitalised throughout most of 2007 when she suffered from Clostridium Difficile (C Diff) that she acquired there. They and I have had an awkward relationship because of deficiencies in service - a relationship which culminated in a formal complaint - one I lodged in a spirit of co-operation in order to improve things.They took it to heart and they created a training video of my "customer experience" which they will be using with all strata of hospital staff to show them how it can all go horribly wrong.This is a brave step, shows huge customer awareness, and I wanted to take a couple of paragraphs to say "All is not doom and gloom on the Customer Service Front."It's a shame that her heart failure following C Diff recovery let me meet the North East Surrey Crematorium, but it is very interesting to see how differently the two organisations handled me. What a shame my mother is not... More About: Care , Patient , Steps
North East Surrey Crematorium goes off the boil
2008-02-07 15:04:00 I'm starting to get bored with this organisation. Today I received the formal response to my complaint. As expected it was rejected.To be clear, I did not expect it to be rejected because of its validity or invalidity. I expected it to be rejected because I expected it to be rejected. The complaint was heard by three elected representatives, people with arbitrary levels of legal and marketing knowledge. And what seems to have happened is that they have done hunkering down into a bunker instead of taking a correct and citizen facing view of customer service.So I have sent the Clerk to the Board a note telling him that I reserve the right to sue the crematorium for damages in the county court with no further reference to him, and that I will be complaining, as is my right, to the Local Government Ombudsman. I didn't tell him that I will also be complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority. I very much doubt he realises that it is advertising.I've sent the final papers ... More About: East , North , Surrey
Spammers, How stupid do you think we are?
2008-02-06 11:11:00 The technique for spamming a Blog seems to be "Go back far enough and no-one will notice." People really think they will get links to their sites by posting unmitigated crap in comments.Have they no understanding that the blog software emails the blogger with the comments and that we ~gasp~ delete them?If you have something to say, something meaty and worthwhile, say it. If you link to your site as an example, great. If you paid some imbecile SEO company to spam blogs, think again. You just flushed the money down the drain. More About: Stupid , Spammers
Banks, customer service and marketing
2008-02-04 17:15:00 Long term readers will remember that my mother died in October, and will probably have guessed that I am executor of her estate. I've just got to the stage when I have grant of probate and can tidy up bank accounts etc. This is when the banks show who is good and wants your business and who is bad.ING Direct: Closed her account and initiated the BACS transfer to the destination account the day the formal request arrived. They were fast, slick, responsive, unofficious and will get my business againBarclays: Friendly, but slow and procedure bound. The transfer is initiated today, several days later than ING, but the experience was generally OK. They might get my business in futureAbbey: Unfriendly. Useless phone system. They made me call another number where I ended up in a black hole for a while. The process "will take 7-10 working days". When asked why this was the answer was pretty much "That's how long it takes." Curt service agent, no appreciation of customer needs... More About: Marketing , Banks , Customer Service , Service , Customer
North East Surrey Crematorium article feedback
2008-01-30 09:05:00 The Wimbledon Guardian's article about the North East Surrey Crematorium and my conviction that they have not only broken the bounds of taste, but also the Data Protection Act 1998, has drawn mixed reactions. The interesting thing is the first reaction, from one Val Newman, a person who has had many dealings with the crematorium. Val misses the point of legality and does not understand how the Data Protection Act applies.At first sight that is fine, but is it?If the ordinary British public do not understand the law and how it is not observed by organisations which abuse their personal data, then what hope to those organisations, who employ the ordinary British public, have of implementing it correctly?This law was implemented almost eight years ago. For it to be misunderstood still is an indictment of more than one Information Commissioner, whose primary role after regulation is education.I have no argument with Val about the impeccable behaviour of the crematorium staff, though... More About: Article , Feedback
North East Surrey Crematorium - Woeful complaints process
2008-01-28 12:49:00 Not that anyone cares by now. I have almost lost the will to live myself. I shall not be using this crematorium, though, when I die!This has been going on since 5 November. If you follow the trail you'll see! This outfit was tacky enough to send me a marketing letter the instant they cremated my mother. And, when I checked, I made a complaint to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) because I do not believe that they had the right to market to me at all.So we started the complaints process. On Thursday there was a panel hearing. On Friday I had heard nothing. Today I got this:Purely to update you, the Board's Complaint Panel met at Civic Offices Sutton on Thursday 24th January to consider and reach a decision on your complaint. A formal report of that decision is now being prepared and this will be forwarded to you as soon as it has been approved by all three panel members and signed off. I would expect you to receive this over the course of the next two weeks.... More About: East , North , Surrey , Process
North East Surrey Crematorium
2008-01-25 12:22:00 If you read Scéance is the New Marketing Medium, It Seems, You'll know that back in November I was very much distressed by the actions of North East Surrey Crematorium when they sent unsolicited marketing material to me postmarked on the day of my mother's funeral.Yesterday they held the complaint hearing. So that was a complaint on 5th November, and the hearing on 24th January. Yup, that's timely. I haven't heard the outcome yet. However the story was picked up by the Wimbledon Guardian:A consultant in data privacy has slammed a crematorium for its "tasteless" posting of marketing material, claiming that it broke the law. Tim Trent, 55, cremated his mum Connie at North East Surrey Crematorium last November and thought that would be the end of the matter. But three days later, he was stunned to find a glossy brochure on his doormat, advertising memorials, plaques, flowers and other services offered by the crematorium. Mr Trent said: "It hit me in the face like a sledgehamme...
Bairstow Eves, you do not have my permission
2008-01-21 16:18:00 To set this in perspective, I am the executor of my mother's estate and I am selling her house in Worcester Park, in Surrey. It has a notice on the front door. It says 'No newspapers, No leaflets'. That is pretty specific.Every so often I check on the house. Today I found a hand delivered 'letter' from Bairstow Eves, the estate agent, signed by Matthew Aboud, their local Marketing Manager.That is a leaflet.So, leafleting me when specifically prohibited from doing so has lost Bairstow Eves the chance, should my current agent be unsuccessful, of marketing the property. And their 'letter' was one asking if they could do so.I called Matthew and explained this to him. I imagine he cared a little. I very much doubt he understands what Permission Based Marketing is. I mentioned that he had won a place on this blog.Oh, if I'd wanted them to act as my agent, I would have asked them to bid for my business. My current agent, Samuel James, is precisely what I want to market th...
Sainsbury's is still chickened out
2008-01-17 16:17:00 There has been a medium term follow through from the TV shows telling us about chicken rearing. The shelves, at least at my local and large Sainsbury's store in Bracknell are still full of broiler house birds, but there isn't a free range bird to be seen.I checked with the Customer Service desk. They have had a few in, but these birds can fly. They go out as fast as the shelves get stocked. They hope to be getting a few more in tomorrow morning.Should we take this at face value, or should we be cynical?
European Data Protecion Law is inadequate
2008-01-16 13:27:00 This is the view of Peter Hustin, the European Data Protection Supervisor. It's part of his reaction to pan-galactic databases allegedly to help prevent terrorism. The "those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear" databases.Why I am reminded of the Holocaust every time I see that phrase? "Yup, being Jewish yesterday was fine, but today it's an arrestable offence." After all we get new crimes every day. It was not that long ago that the offence of "Speaking Arabic and trying to ride on the London Eye" was created, and then there is the capital offence of "Trying to travel on the London Underground while wearing a bulky jacket."Hustin is right. The current legal framework is wholly inadequate. Have a look at the article synopses on ComplianceAndPrivacy and maybe tell me what you think.
Is your landing page fit for purpose?
2008-01-15 12:18:00 Rather like Mae West said, but not exactly as she said, "So many prospects, so little time!"If your campaign is directed at a landing page, and it should be, let's have some basics that you need to make sure your campaign works properly. You're expending effort and budget in making a campaign drive people to you in order to buy your product or service. The very least you can do is get your end right! It's only polite. And it's your brand values that you're wasting when you get it wrong.One: Does it have a Fair Processing Notice?A landing page doesn't need a privacy policy. It needs a Fair Processing Notice - a statement of what will happen to the data once entered - that is clear, easy to read, above the submit button and detailed enough to be fairTwo: Does it make it clear who the Data Controller is?It needs to state it, explicitly. Most landing pages are on separate domains from main websites. The subscriber needs to know who controls the data.Three: Does it make it c... More About: Page , Purpose , Landing
Make sure your landing page works, esp if B2C
2008-01-15 11:19:00 I've just followed up on a Benecol campaign. They offer free vouchers if you visit their UK website. The stuff's expensive, so the vouchers are probably worthwhile. My doctor says I need it because it reduces cholesterol, but it costs a fortune.Anyway, I filled out all my data, and ended up at an error page. That was at 7:30am. Now, at 10:22 it is still an error page. Plenty of time to learn about it and put it right.I called the phone number, since it was a free number. That cost Benecol at least £10. Now that number is obviously an outsourced call centre, but I asked if they knew that the website was dead."Yes, we're getting told this a lot.""Do you have a feedback mechanism to tell Benecol this?""No."This is plain daft. The campaign is faulty and it just has not been put right. But the call centre has no route to tell them that it's faulty! More About: Page , Works , Make , Landing
Supermarkets are chicken
2008-01-13 12:55:00 To be fair, not all are. Sainsbury's, Waitrose and the Co-op all came out well from 'Jamie's Fowl Dinners', compiled and presented by Jamie Oliver. Both of my non UK readers will wonder what I'm talking about. So, for you, a synopsis of the TV show was to follow chicken egg and chicken meat production from egg to table, comparing the methods of rearing, letting the audience judge which was appropriate for their budget and emotional needs.Previous programmes in the week showed Hugh fearnley-Whittingstall running what had to be anathema to him - a factory chicken farm. Together they made gripping, if somewhat horrifying television.Since I work from home very often, the weekly shopping often falls on my shoulders. I cook, too, and I've been cooking and eating budget chicken for years. On Thursday, even before Jamie's Fowl Dinners, Sainsbury's were completely out of free range chickens, but the shelves of value chickens, the dirt cheap stuff I have been in the habit of buyi... More About: Chicken , Supermarkets
2008 – Lucky 7 Digital Marketing Predictions
2008-01-03 15:15:00 One - SPAM:People will still be deluged by emails telling us we have inadequate genitalia. While it is very worrying to me that they must have checked(!), the greater concern is the submerging of wanted, permissioned messages in the welter of trashTwo – Greylisting with replace Blocklisting:I have several ISPs for email. One, at my instruction, because they started spam-blocking an important client, offers me no SPAM protection, most offer simple, allegedly heuristic, blocklisting. My own email server “greylists”.Greylisting relies on the economics of spamming. A spammer’s email server expects outbound emails to bounce. It ignores all normal email protocol soft bounce messages and it doesn’t retry (0.9 probability). Greylisting simply sends a couple (or more) of soft bounce messages before accepting the inbound mail. Real email retries for several days in case the receiving server is in trouble. More than 90% of spammers seem to give up. SPAM can and does evade G... More About: Marketing , Predictions , Digital , Lucky , 2008
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!
2007-12-21 12:47:00 It took an hour, but Next have redeemed themselves. I had to become strongly assertive in order to achieve a call from their supervisor in a timely manner, and I had threatened them with £50 per day for storage based on their (then) breach of contract. But I have now had the supervisor call.I explained that I was angry, not because the drivers had left without collecting; as I said, I would have done the same in their position, but because I had fulfilled my part of the contract in the full expectation that they would fulfill theirs.She agreed with me.A special van is coming today.She is also feeding back the necessity to protect their drivers by supplying them with blankets to minimise the risk of transit damage.So they have redeemed themselves. But they should not have needed to. They should not have taken the risk of customer dissatisfaction. More About: Santa Claus , Virginia , Santa
Remember that bunch flogging IVAs?
2007-12-05 00:49:00 I blogged about it back in July. They are called "Investment Team" and appear to have annoyed a reasonable number of folk, form the fuss online about themMy new friend at I Team (remember, he is nothing to do with this bunch?) has been contacted by the TPS and several other folks. Everyone thinks it's his business, and it isn't.There's a journalist on the track, now. I don't think anyone likes the idea of hard selling a "mild form of bankruptcy"
B2C telesales - how to annoy the agent hugely!
2007-11-28 21:10:00 I absolutely loathe idiot call centres that intrude into my home. I'm Telephone Preference Service registered and have been for years, but a few creep through. Usually they are the offshore centres, predominately in India. And, since they act in general as a Data Processor for the UK corporation, that corporation is liable for the breach of the law..Of course the very best way to make a sale is to annoy the bejasus out of your prospective customer, but far more fun is to take control of the call.Most people have no idea how to take control. We're programmed to answer questions with politeness, but get them off the script and they panic. Now this is not my idea. I found it at a couple of sites and decided to have a go in person tonight.I had a call that could well have been a real call for my son who is in India at present. The accent was Indian, and she introduced herself as Kelly, something I have always felt to be unlikely. After I worked out that she was selling we have... More About: Agent , Anno , Gent
Do you remember those Snap Shots popup windows?
2007-11-23 00:35:00 They were here. Now they are gone. Snap .com just launched its own advertising. Regrettably the reaction is not what they hoped! I dislike being forced to take adverts. I want to choose to take them. So it has gone, gone, gone from all my sites.Their blog entry about the launch makes amusing reading. Well, the comments do.The thing is, I do not think people like corporations who change the rules and dress it up to look like it's good for you. They were cute. Now they are intrusive. Were. More About: Windows , Shots , Popup
Sometimes we forget we represent a brand
2007-11-14 18:48:00 I met someone today who forgot he was representing his brand. He went out of his way to be rude to me and spent a long time mouthing obscenities at me, all the while representing his very professional employer.So often this scenario is anonymous, but, today, a man I had never met before, a man I will never meet again, defaced his brand for me. I think he had no idea he was doing it.The scene was simple. I joined the M3 motorway in the middle of a long snarlup caused by some poor motorist doing something unpleasant enough to require an ambulance. We were all patient enough, except the BMW driver who got out to adjust his golf clubs. Gosh, that must have been an important thing to do!As we got close to the accident we found it had been cleared away to all except the nearside lane. Most people were sensible. The Germans call the "merge in turn" manoeuvre "The Zipper Principle", though I'm sure the word is substantially longer than that! Most people have the wit to drive up to ... More About: Brand , Some , Resent
Scéance is the New Marketing Medium, It Seems
2007-11-05 15:48:00 I have just been the victim of what might possibly be lawful marketing, but a marketing letter which has left me more angry than I could believe I was going to be. It came, neatly addressed to me at my home address, and contained a technically very poor standard letter addressed to “Dear Sir/Madam”, odd since they have my contact details. It shows a total lack of time and trouble taken.It comes out under the signature of the Deputy Registrar for a public crematorium in the Surrey area, and arrived today, the Monday after my mother’s cremation on Friday. The envelope is postmarked for Friday - the day of the cremation.I have several issues, not least the issue of taste, with this letter. Already you can see that I criticise it as a marketing message because it is imperfectly personalised. I also criticise it for failing to adhere either to the letter or to the spirit of the law. I need to explain that.Well in advance of my mother’s cremation I engaged the services of a ... More About: Marketing , Medium
While on the topic of Customer Service...
2007-10-31 12:54:00 I am experiencing BT as I write. I am a very old (watch it!) broadband customer in the UK. BT in their wisdom piloted ADSL with hard wired "master sockets" with inbuilt filters which split DSL from phone. I took the service 10 minutes after it was available in Bracknell. I had the engineer come and install it, and run a 25 metre cable to my office from the master socket for a 5 metre distance.He couldn't install it outside because "That would need a ladder, and I'm not insured for ladders, sir.""But you have ladders on the roofrack of your van?""Yes, but I'm not insured. Anyway this data cable isn't weatherproof, you know."So, for several years I was a happy BT Broadband customer, right up to the day they messed up, when I moved to Netvigator and bypassed the phone line entirely - they were radio linked, much like cellphones, to a base station. But Netvigator, now "Now!" or "MyNow!" (UK Broadband) has decided to withdraw service in my (only my?) area and I have rejoined ... More About: Customer Service , Service , Customer , Topic
Customer Service seems not to cover deceased clients well
2007-10-29 18:52:00 I have now had two rather bad customer service experiences, both banks, one in a call centre, the other at a counter. The call centre was Barclays, the counter was Abbey or Santander.Countering customThe counter was simple. Instead of hearing that I was there to report a death and being pleasant and sympathetic, the counter clerk told me "You'll have to..." And that's the point While I may "have to..." what I want to be told is different. I want to be told, sympathetically, that "We need to take some details from you. There is a form to sign, but I'm sure we can handle that. I'm afraid our trained person is booked solid today, would it be possible to see her tomorrow?"We could have taken it from there quite easily. And notice that nowhere in that conversation does it say "You'll have to..."Total lack of customer service means that one clerk has removed any possibility that I will use Abbey or Santander or whoever they are as my bank now or ever.But that was mild compare... More About: Customer Service , Service , Customer , Clients , Cover
Pause in blogging
2007-10-26 01:29:00 The lady to the left is the reason. She is my mother, Constance Trent, and was born in 1918 and died on Sunday 21st October 2007.I imagine you can guess that my attention has not been on my blog recently. She has not been well. In hospital she was infected with Clostridium Difficile - a superbug that is very hard to live through.We have a view in my family that flowers are great for a decoration, but are excessive in grief, so we are hoping that anyone who is moved to will donate even a trivial sum at a page we are using to raise funds for The National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (a UK charoty) in her memory. She supported them in life and we support them in her name in death. More About: Blogging , Pause
UK Information Commissioner does not regulate BlueSpam after all!
2007-10-12 19:26:00 He thought he did, but he's decided he doesn't. This from ComplianceAndPrivacy.com which covers news in the security and privacy fields:Following discussions with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and others the Information Commissioner ’s Office has amended its guidance on the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. The guidance previously stated that marketing messages sent using Bluetooth technology would be subject to PECR rules relating to the sending of unsolicited marketing. However, the Regulations only apply to messages sent over a public electronic communications network and we have concluded that Bluetooth messages are not in fact sent using such a network. We have amended our guidance accordingly. It is for government to decide whether the law should be changed to cover such marketing. We would like to stress that regardless of whether a particular technology is covered by PECR, consumers are incr... More About: Information Commissioner , Missi
BlueSpam (etc) trends
More articles from this author:2007-10-12 09:41:00 I'm returning to my regular monitoring of terms to do with Spam and Bluetooth this month. With the mobile industry now providing better and better marketing techniques, and with the uptake of bluecasting, or proximity marketing, via your handset, I'm looking at the past 90 days and blog mentions of the terms, and I've added a few relevant terms.For comparison the mentions, all mentions, of the term Spam are included. I really do hope this excludes the canned meat!The graphs are presented together for you to draw your own conclusions. They are dynamic - they refresh whenever Technorati refreshes. They are the total of all blog posts recorded there with the terms and are thus likely to have statistical significance.Posts that contain Bluespam per day for the last 90 days.Posts that contain Bluecast per day for the last 90 days.Posts that contain "Proximity Marketing" per day for the last 90 days.Posts that contain Bluetooth per day for the last 90 days.Posts that contain "SMS Mark... More About: Trends 1, 2, 3 |
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