Is Email Your Best Foot Forward, or Are You Stubbing Your Toe?

Sure, there are a lot of ways to contact a business: phone, chat, text, social media. 

But for many interactions, email remains the core point of connection between customer and company. 

Thus, it's an ongoing mystery to me that so many businesses remain shabby at email operations.

Ruth's Chris Steak House

I ate at Ruth's Chris a couple months ago, and because I booked the reservation with Open Table, found myself on the Ruth's Chris email list. 

I got 14 emails from them in 63 days. That's a lot of "we have steaks" content. Too much, in fact.

I hit that magic "unsubscribe" link and was informed that it would take TEN BUSINESS DAYS to remove me from the list. 

Email unsubscribe is an automated process. Of this, I am certain. But, they delay it so they can send me two more emails (and they did), despite me saying "no más". 

This is unnecessary, and annoying. If I didn't enjoy the first 14 missives, the 2 "bonus" sends aren't going to do the trick. 

I give the Ruth's Chris email program one steak: 🥩

Wine Spies

I'm a big fan of Wine Spies, the e-commerce discount vino retailer. Great deals. (in fact, use this link and you can save $20 - and I'll save $20 too)

On a recent order, I indicated I did want ice packs with my shipment to keep wine cool during summer transport. They didn't notice that I'd made that request. And so my wine never shipped. 

Curious and wineless, I emailed customer support to ask why the wine hadn't left the warehouse.

Within an HOUR, they responded, added the ice packs for free (saving me $10) and shipped the order.

This is how you do it. 

Quick. Clear. Kind. (as I talk about in my keynote presentation: The 3 Unbreakable Rules of Customer Loyalty)

I give the Wine Spies email program five wines: 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷

This stuff isn't hard, Baer Facts fans. 

It's so easy to delight customers with email (and also so easy to frustrate them).

Which are you doing?

When is the last time you truly evaluated the what/where/when/why/how of your email operations?

Maybe now, before the big Q4 rush, would be a wise time to look under your email hood and see if you're leaking some oil?

Jay's Faves

Here's an interesting, lightweight TV series for you!

Cheap Irish Homes streams on Amazon Prime and features Maggie Malloy showing potential buyers dilapidated farm shacks all around the Emerald Isle. 

The scenery is great, and Maggie's optimism is astonishing. Showing a house where the inside is covered entirely with an inch of mold, "Seems like this one has a bit of encroaching dampness."

Sláinte!

The Books Report

Rohit Bhargava is one of my favorite marketing and business thinkers, and his new book with venture capitalist Ben Dupont is fantastic.

Non Obvious Thinking: How to See What Others Miss gives you a complete framework for observing and analyzing scenarios and then drawing uber-useful conclusions.

I love this one! 

Tell a Friend

That's it for now. Back in 2 weeks. 

If you like The Baer Facts, please share it with your friends. Send them to TheBaerFacts.com. Thank you!