Heard a heartening story today about (real) estate agents. Not the usual joke about them all losing their jobs, ha ha. This time about how one firm has handled the uncomfortable reality of a downturn.
A friend of ours has worked for an agency for four years, and has been made redundant in the latest response to the changes in the UK housing market. She was unhappy, and requested a meeting with the Managing Director.
Not only did the MD meet her, he showed her financial reports and statistics – in confidence – to explain the background for the decisions; then he showed her the numbers and selection criteria used for those who would lose their job. Last, he gave her a personal reference, and his cell/mobile phone number.
Good to hear that somebody is doing the right thing in a difficult situation. Hats off to the man.
A very large and successful global organisation is wasting untold amounts of money, creating ill-will amongst its customers and prospects, and helping to perpetuate the bad news stories about poorly-targeted marketing. And it would be so easy to fix.
It’s good practice and common sense, when preparing a direct mail campaign, to check the mailing data against reliable suppression files to remove known goneaways and deceased records. There is a cost for running the suppressions, but it’s substantially less than the cost of producing the pack and then posting it unnecessarily.
In this case though, the marketing department does not hold the budget for postage. They are responsible for the creative and production costs, but not the cost of getting it to the consumer. If they run a suppression, then the cost comes off their marketing budget. So guess what, they don’t run suppressions, because it means they can ‘do more marketing’.
I hardly know where to begin.
They are deliberately sending out marketing communcations to some people who definitely don’t live there any more. They are perpetuating all the bad news stories about mailing dead people. They are wasting the company’s money and its reputation.
The company is getting exactly what it measures – more cost-effective campaigns … as long as you measure ‘cost-effectiveness’ as the cost of production, not cost of response, cost of reputation, or cost to the customer service centre of dealing with the fall-out from the distressed bereaved.
What sort of culture must there be in an organisation that prevents the marketing, data or customer service team from doing the right thing? What sort of message does this behaviour give to the rest of the business?
I wish I knew how to find the person in this organisation who has the authority to put it right.