Yeah almost as personalized as this knee slapper from SalesForce.com:
Hi {Lead.FirstName},
Salesforce.com is above Siebel CRM for the first time as “Leaders” in the 2007 CRM/SFA Magic Quadrant, the industry’s most prestigious and valued ranking of CRM products and services.
Previously, Siebel was the only leader, and now Salesforce.com is above Siebel. This is a milestone for the industry and shows that an on-demand service can replace traditional software in a leadership position!
"We predict that within three years the majority of SFA deployments will be based on Software-as-a-Service."
--Gartner, Inc.
View the entire report here:
http://www.salesforce.com/form/pdf/sfa_magiicquadrant_gartner.jsp?d=70130000000DFHo
Regards,
Nicole
The irony is exquisite.
Come on folks. You sell software that does CRM and I'm supposed to trust your software when I get something like this?
Please!
Isn't this exactly the kind of thing that good CRM software is supposed to prevent? But that aside, the real problem is that there is a not so subtle distinction between personalized and personal emails.
Send me a personal email. Send me an email that shows that you know me; that you know my dog's name; that you know what I had for lunch; that you know I'm partial to rum. Send me an email that lets me know that I'm important to you as a person (not just a {Lead.FirstName}).Or alternatively, don't.
I mean it. You don't know me Nicole. Just admit it. You don't know me, my dog, my lunch, or that I am very good friends with Jerry. Just send me a sales email like every other crappy sales email but which at least has the honesty and integrity to admit that you don't know me.
But whatever you do, just don't let me know that you think of me only as {Lead.FirstName}.
That's just pathetic.
3 comments:
Nice post Bruce, but what's your solution? Should everyone give up with trying to make automated systems act like they know you? Surely you wouldn't actually want poor Nicole to have to manually type customised emails to every lead that comes her way? I think what I'm getting at here is: are you criticising the principle of what was done or the fact that it was done badly?
Dear {Blogger.FirstName},
Thanks for this enjoyable blog post on %subject%. I found it most interesting and humorous.
Sincerely,
--{Commenter.Initials}.
@David - Actually my solution IS to have them give up trying to make automated systems act like they know me. They should just send me something... well... automated looking. I mean, they aren't fooling me. And even if they did fool me I'd resent them for it.
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