Now this is cruel

American Express loves me! Bear with me on this one, I know most of you must receive mountaints of direct mail, but since I've moved around so much in the past two years, most advertisers have lost track of me. So when someone sends me something, especially Amex, I tend to open it (beware advertisers, this is a small window of opportunity. If you all start sending me stuff, I will revert back to plonking it in the recycling bin again). But this was just cruel. They sent me an application for an Amex Gold Card. Lord knows I could do with a little credit, almost at the end of my student days I'm running seriously low on cash. However, I don't think Amex would even let me go near any of their cards at this point in my life and any application I would put in would be immediately denied.

That brings me something else I was thinking about the other day. Why don't brands do things to delight their customers? I fly BA to AMS from LON regularly, and although I know I can't be their most profitable customer, I am a loyal one. Even though I know that the flight will only give me 250 airmiles, and to qualify for a free flight to AMS it will take me 4500 points (that's 18 roundtrips!), I still like 'em. It's the hats I think. Or the fact they serve their tea with milk. But how much more would I like them if they would pay attention to me and try and delight me? And I don't mean with freebies that I don't want. Instead with something that would mean something to me (e.g. double the miles on your next flight. Or a nice thank you email for flying with us. Or something else, as long as it's personal) and that says 'we recognize you're not our most profitable customer ever. But we still like you. Thanks for liking us too.'

Comments

[Antoine]

sounds like a gat-in-de-markt future job: consulting on personal marketing!

www.bureauambitie.nl but you're not in Dutch land so maybe this link isn't something for you.

[Natasja]

Bro: Hey, cool idea... I'll keep that in mind! And thanks for the link, sounds like it'll be interesting TV. I'll try and catch it on uitzendinggemist.nl

[Charles]

Speaking of BA, I fly "regularly" Montreal - London and how do they thank me? By stranding us 3 hours at CDG until 1am with no food or beverages and not organising transportation from LHR to central London... that is really cruel.