Privacy nightmares

2008-11-03 08:40

Chris Moerdyk

Relationship marketing. That's the buzz these days. One on one. Eye to eye. Mano a mano. Get to know your customer, build a relationship, get some trust going and all will be hunky dory and smell like roses.

Well, that's the theory anyway.

There are however, two hidden dangers that can make a relationship marketing exercise come back and smack you in the face with an intensity varying from wet fish to napalm.

The first is gathering information about a customer willy nilly without giving any thought to respecting privacy. The second danger is not collecting enough information and heading into a relationship half cocked.

But first, the issue of respecting the value of privacy. An expert on the subject is American customer service guru Don Peppers whom I met when he visited South Africa some time back. This is what he had to say to companies:

"Be careful with your customers' private stuff. If you don't safeguard personal information - which is the foundation of a customer relationship - you will undermine your attempts to build loyalty.

"A recent survey reports that Americans are concerned about how their personal information is being used:

"Four out of ten respondents, about 78 million Americans, believe they have been victims of consumer privacy invasions.

"Eight in ten American adults (158 million) feel they have lost control over how companies collect and use their personal data."

Patronising and insulting

That's the problem with one-to-one marketing. If companies don't know enough about a customer, he or she will pick up very quickly that all they are after is a quick sale and that they are making overtures at their wallets and absolutely nothing else.

Which is both patronising and insulting.

Relationship marketing is incredibly powerful. Trouble is, like all powerful things it has the capacity to blow up in a company's face if they don't use it properly.

Personally, I get really annoyed with all that unwanted e-mail that lands in my inbox. The majority of which don't have any sort of unsubscribe facility in spite of the fact that the law very firmly states that it is illegal to send someone e-mail advertising without giving them an unsubscribe option.

Something else that gives me the zig is when I book a table at a restaurant and they ask for my number which I always assume they need in case problems arise with the booking. But, they then use it week after week, month after month, to pepper me with special offers and so forth.

But, what really worries me are those sms ads that pitch up on my cell phone and the service providers swear blind they haven't given my number to anybody. How on earth do they get it? And why is my privacy not being protected?

Come to think of it - I don't think any of us have any privacy anymore.

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