Faking Personal Touch is a Bad Idea

This blog is by Rob, President of Junction Networks

I’ve been trying two great hosted services to simplify and improve a business process. So far, the actual services are very promising, but their approaches to making me a customer haven’t been.

Here’s what happened:

Service 1:

1. Me: Signed up for a free 30 day trial online. Great.
2. Them: I got one email that said:
   • “Hi, my name is Jim. I tried calling you, but you could not be reached. I’m here to help you during your trial. Please let me know how it’s going.”
3. Me: I’m impressed. Damn, I must have missed the call.
4. Them: Another email:
   • “Hi, my name is Dave. I tried calling you but you could not be reached. I’m here to help you during your trial. Please let me know how it’s going.”
5. Me: That’s weird. My phone didn’t ring. Who is Dave?
6. Them: Another email:
   • “Hi, my name is Jim. I tried calling you but you could not be reached. I’m here to help you during your trial. Please let me know how it’s going.”
7. Me: ENOUGH! Stop. Jim and Dave are liars. They didn’t call me.
8. Me: I actually had to send an email telling them to stop emailing me (and to fix their automated spamming tool!)

Service 2:

I couldn’t believe it when I got this after signup of service 2:

“Hi, my name is Jennifer. I tried calling you but you could not be reached. I’m here to help you during your trial. Please let me know how it’s going.”

At least Service 2’s SPAM Machine wasn’t broken and only sent me one.

I found this practice to be odd. Much like OnSIP, these tools are meant to be really easy for users to set up without help. And, they are provisioned with a free trial so users can truly test the service without commitment. This is all great stuff; why would they feel the need to fake personal touch? It is just annoying and obviously insincere.