In the kick-off entry of my blog at the start of the year I promised to ‘share’ my customer experiences…the ‘good ones’ and the ‘not so good ones’.  This week I had what I like to call a “what are they doing…?” moment which falls under the category of ‘not so good ones’.

I received, via the snail mail, a letter from my internet service provider; an organization that has access to my email address.  This organization sent me a letter to inform me that the price of my monthly fee would be increasing by €0,05. After reading the letter twice, I concluded that I was reading it correctly and that this was actually happening.

Over the years of my career I have had on more than one occasion the task of ensuring a letter is created, approved, printed and delivered to the customer.  This process is not only tedious (envision if you will five to eight people sitting in a room and discussing in great detail if the customer will appreciate the ‘tone of voice’ and the use of witty adjectives) but it also often ends in the core of the message being buried in a letter that is much longer and complex than it needs to be. Hence, increasing the likelihood that the letter will not be carefully read (thus not understood) by the customer, or even better, deposited immediately into the recycling box (I am speaking from my own experience).  Do organizations realize this when they cost out how much it actually costs to send that piece of paper (i.e.: cost of the man hours, paper costs, printing costs, stamps, etc)…?

After my initial shock of receiving a letter from an company whom should be emailing me the environmentalist emotions began to surface.  It is 2011, we know that we are not treating our planet as nicely as we could be.  How many trees have to die so that the customers of this internet service provider can be informed of a €0,05 price increase?  (ok, maybe a bit dramatic but I am trying to make a point).  I found myself having a negative response to this ‘interaction’ moment with this organization I had chosen to do business with.

And now we bridge over to a key theme of this blog: the customer. The customer of today is not one that is blindly accepting the actions of a company.  Customers want to associate themselves with organizations that closely match their personal values and norms.  To experience such waste from an organization I have chosen to do business with left me with the question ‘do I want to do business with this sort of organization?”  And if I am asking this question to myself, how many other customers are doing the same?

What are your thoughts…?  Please post your comments but don’t send me a letter as it is going directly into the recycling box!