So I chose the South Shore Harbor location but could not find it when I drove there.

Turns out it is in a grocery store.

So today I called to suggest they might consider changing the address from

SOUTH SHORE HARBOR
2905 S SHORE BLVD,
LEAGUE CITY, TX 77573

to

SOUTH SHORE HARBOR
(Inside the Randalls store)
2905 S SHORE BLVD,
LEAGUE CITY, TX 77573

Unfortunately, I couldn’t even get my suggestion out because the person who answered the phone was not really interested in my suggestion. She wanted to explain that had I looked at the right column I would see it says “In-Store Branch” so they were right and I was wrong.

I was not thanked for the call. I was not thanked for my concern. Rather it was explained that Iwas “wrong”.

Even when your customers suggest “wrong” ideas, this is not the way to respond.

(The actual URL is WAY too long to type … http://dallasmuseumofart.org/Dallas_Museum_of_Art/Experience/Arts___Letters_Live/ID_008546 … but let’s just ignore that for now.)

Ignoring the length of the URL for a minute, take a look at the page. Now start the stopwatch. Try to buy a ticket. See how long it takes you to buy a ticket. I haven’t yet figured it out yet. Should be a one-click process … as in “click here to buy a ticket”.

In addition, notice that the page mentions his TED presentation. Why doesn’t it link to it? (See http://snipurl.com/9bo1l and http://snipurl.com/9bo2o) . Doesn’t seem to link to his website either. (http://www.sirkenrobinson.com) Wonder why. It does show a picture of his new book: The Element. But it doesn’t link to that either (http://snipurl.com/9bo46).

But that isn’t all. See here on the same site: http://snipurl.com/9bomo. Look at Jan 20. A nice description. But no link to the other promotional page and no other links either. And still no link to buy a ticket.

No easy way to buy a ticket. No link to the TED talk that might inspire attendance. No link to the book. No cross links within the site. Is it just me, or does that seem wrong?

That said, lots of people are trying to get into the “Internet Marketing” business these days. Some of those people are Car Dealers. Unfortunately, many of these people try using the new technology, without understanding the culture.

One of those, in my opinion is Absolute Hyundai of Mesquite. They use CRM.COM to email blast their prospects. Today, I received two of their emails. Why two? I thought I knew the answer. You see I was shopping for a car. So I requested some information using one of the car sites that sells inquiries to dealers. And because I’m naturally suspicious of car dealers anyway, I requested much of the information twice, using different names and email addresses. Why? Because it lets me follow their follow up marketing. So I figured that they had just emailed me to both addresses.

But guess what. They had sent identical emails (with different subject lines) to the same address. Now I am confused. But that is a nit. I move on.

Here is the text of the email

James ,

 I noticed that you were not able to make it for your appointment. Just wanted to touch base with you and see what time you could make it out today. We will be here until 8:30am until 8:30pm. Please call and refer to your personal internet confirmation # 4060223. When you come out you will also recieve up to $250.00 FREE GAS on the spot. Just for coming in!!!

Come in for our Saturday Specials!!!!!
I am personally Looking foward to working with you!

Eric Romo
(888) 599- 3558 

I was really curious about that personal internet confirmation number. So I called up, used a different name, and gave them that number. They looked it up and identified me, so I do know for sure that the number is uniquely assigned.

(To be sure, I handled that call badly. I should have been more direct about the purpose of my call and instead of using a made up name, I should just not given my name and asked them up front. I was wrong. I feel badly about that and I’ve noted it for next time to do better. Mea culpa.) 

Then I wrote back. Here is what I wrote:

Hello.

For this email, I reference your email to me which I have copied below and include in it’s HTML format for full clarity.

First, please know that I have no memory of ever requesting to be placed on your email list. It is possible I did. I cannot say with absolute certainty I never did. But I have no memory of ever doing so.

That said your CAN-SPAM notice says explicitly that my request to be on this list was not required. That increases my suspicions that I never did and that my one time contact of you caused me to be on your list.

To be sure, CAN-SPAM does not require a request. Including me on such a list is clearly legal. But, in my opinion, it is discourteous.

I don’t mind you sending me any individual, personal one time email you would like. But I have no memory of ever once explicitly signing up for your “list”.

My recommendation is that you be more open and forthright on whether I actually signed up, and if so, how and when, and if not, then explicitly how my individual name became on the list. It isn’t complex. Something simple, like “We are sending you this notice because on xx.Dec.2008 you requested information from us on our website and we thought this additional information might be useful”. For me, full disclosures like that are a key part of internet courtesy. I would also recommend including an unsubscribe link right there. Your overt willingness to immediately unsub me, goes a long way in easing my concerns and encouraging me to keep reading.

Second, you appear to have begun with a tiny “mis-statement”. I never had an appointment. I strongly recommend changing that opening line. It immediately alerted me that this was a bulk marketing email. There are a ton of opening grabbers that would work better.

Third, I strongly recommend you quit trying to hide your CAN-SPAM notice. Doing that seems to imply that you are scared I might actually read the thing. For me, that reinforces the “image” of slimy car dealerships. Be PROUD of the CAN-SPAM NOTICE. I mean you only want to email people who want it. Be proud of the CAN-SPAM notice. Don’t hide it. Feature it. With a little “language crafting” you really can transform it from a legal requirement into a marketing “plus”.

Fourth, there is a teeny tiny formatting bug you might want to address. There is an “extra” space after my name, in the email salutation. That may be because of the omission of my last name, but the email software should be able to omit that space with proper coding, and if it can’t it omit the space, it should be fixed.

Fifth, you did not disclose what is required (or not required) to get the gas. This only encourages me to think there must be a catch. If there is no catch, say so. If there is a catch, tell me. You know. Full disclosure. This isn’t hard.

Finally, I wonder why you aren’t using an email domain that belongs to your dealership instead of a subdomain of the Car Research domain. If you have an opportunity to relay this back to the “powers that be”, I strongly recommend you abandon the ah.car-crm.com subdomain and move your email to the dealership domain. The use of the Car Research subdomain severely weakens your branding effort. I would include and FEATURE your dealership domain http://AbsoluteBestDeal.com in the email and also use it for your own email address. ERomo@AbsoluteBestDeal.com is a lot better than eromo@ah.car-crm.com.

(Yes, I know that YOU write email addresses and domain names using all lower case. But you don’t have to. Mixed case works fine for email addresses and domain names and significantly improves readability. It can cause problems in URLs but works great in email addresses.)

I note of course that all of these comments are not for you personally, and trust you will forward them as appropriate.

All that said, in accordance with the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act, take me off this list and all your lists.

Thank you.

James S. Huggins

So, please, let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your opinions.

Addendum: I have received an email asking me what their CAN-SPAM notice said, so I just decided to add it here:

This email is being sent to you, James Huggins, because you either showed interest, purchased or serviced a vehicle at Absolute Hyundai. We send these emails to benefit you with savings, factory recall information and timely servicing information. If you would like to be removed from this email list please, Click Here and you will no longer receive these emails. Should you have any suggestions or comments regarding our email program, please feel free to call us at (888) 599- 3558. You may also contact us via regular mail at 16230 LBJ Freeway – Mesquite, Tx 75150. Your feedback is important to us! Thank you!

To ensure delivery of these e-mails in the future, please add eromo@ah.car-crm.com to your address book.

I have written on my website about CAN-SPAM here http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/can-spam-is-stupid.htm and here http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/why-can-spam-notices.htm.

(For reasons I have never understood, companies who manage apartments seem unable to create individual websites for them and properly perform Search Engine Optimisation. See the Management site here http://www.babcockbrownresidential.com/apartments/richardson.htm. Note that the link is to FallsOnClearwood.net but it redirects to FallsOnClearwood.com. Not only that, it doesn’t work!)

As many of you know, our community is pet friendly. We require that all residents who have pets have a Pet Addendum with their lease; there is a $10 pet rent per animal per month and a $255 non-refundable pet fee per animal.

Sorry. That is not my definition of Pet Friendly. I can neither understand the one time fee nor the monthly fee.

Why should someone with two cats pay $240 per year extra? Isn’t that what the deposit is for? And if your pets do no damage, why is the $255 fee a fee?

Consider the resident who stays 6 years (like I did). What are they going to do differently because I had a cat that they wouldn’t do anyway. I mean 6 years means new carpet, new paint and a general work over anyway.

Had this been in effect when I had my cat, Spot, they would have charged me an extra $955 for Spot ($255 as a fee and $10 per month for 72 months). Why? What will they do to my apartment that they wouldn’t normally do for someone vacating after 6 years with no pet? And if I had two cats why should it cost me twice as much? If my cats do damage I should reimburse the apartment for costs of course. But why a fee?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to an additional deposit. I’m not opposed to additional cleaning after short term rentals. I’m not opposed to fees based on the effect of a pet. I’m opposed to fees based on the presence of a pet.

Why should the “good” owners of “good” pets be penalized because of what might happen or what sometimes happens or what others do?

Because Spot died, this won’t affect me. Because I’m moving away this won’t affect me. But it still offends me very, very deeply.

And here is my question for you. Can you charge $500.00 per month per pet and still call yourself pet friendly? If not, why can you charge $10 per month per pet? To me, you should never ever under any circumstances charge per pet per month. Ever. Period.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. The Awesome Blossom is GONE. They took it away. I am devastated.

I’m not the only one. See http://www.petitiononline.com/blossom/petition.html and http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080707124923AAOUiep 

Yes, I know it is a nutritional nightmare. See http://www.menshealth.com/20worst/worststarter.html. But so what. I wanted an Awesome Blossom.

Thank goodness for the internet. I did find a recipe I might try here http://www.recipezaar.com/Chilis-Awesome-Blossom-59628.

Also, it seems Outback has one, called Bloomin Onion. Go here http://outback.com/foodandmenus/index.aspx and then look on the page at the bottom where it says “Why the bloom has never left the onion.” Click there. I’m gonna have to go to Outback now.

What was Chili’s thinking? Just goes to show that even high priced corporate types can make mistakes.

I loved this line

My doctor may be tired, preoccupied or not that interested in me as a person; but I should still expect him or her to treat me with the kind of attentiveness and respect I recently received from a “genius” at the local Apple store.

Got that? The author is notes that we are getting more “attentiveness and respect” from young cyberdweebs than we routinely gets from the well educated professionals we call doctors. What is wrong with that picture?

So go ahead. Send a link to this article to your doctor … if you can find the email address of your doctor. HA!

I went to the Chili’s website at http://www.Chilis.com. There was nothing there to indicate they’d be closed on Thanksgiving. But neither was there anything there to indicate they’d be open. While this oversight bothered me, I needed an answer. So, I looked up the phone number of the local restaurant on their site and called that number. The phone answered as normal. It had the long list of options and numbers to press, as normal. It did not say anything about being closed, or being open.

So I pressed a number and waited for an answer. No answer. I tried another number. No answer. Based on that I presumed they were closed even though the system implied they were open. Sure enough, as we drove by, the parking lot was empty.

So my questions are:

1. Why didn’t their website tell me they’d be closed?

2. Why didn’t their answering system tell me they were closed?

For me, the website failure is bad enough. But if I’d called and nothing had answered I’d have known they were closed. But instead of nothing, their automatic system answered and implied they were open. It gave me options to get to different people. I was able to figure out they were closed only by the failure of the system to work.

How hard would it have been to put a new splash page on their site telling the world that they valued their employees enough to close for the day to let them be with family. They could have used their closing as positive PR, but instead, they did nothing.

How hard would it have been to have a new telephone answering message that said they were closed because they wanted their employees to have the day for family. Each caller could have learned of this decision in a positive way. Instead, it offered options that did not work.

One of the awesome powers of the web is the ability to quickly respond. And to do it cheaply. Not only that, they didn’t even need “quickly”. They had a whole year to get ready for that day, and they missed it. Here were two opportunities to promote their closure as a positive thing. Instead they failed to do that and let me wonder … at least till I drove by … whether they were open or closed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll be back. For one thing, their Awesome Blossom is awesome and now that I’ve thought about it, I want one, but in my opinion, Chili’s fumbled this one.

It seems that the people who designed T-Mobile’s services didn’t do what I would consider “a good job”. As Lauren explains:

All callers who hear your personalized voicemail outgoing message are then offered the opportunity to send a numeric page (“press 5″). Unfortunately, this paging prompt is presented to everyone hearing your voicemail message, even when you have paging turned off — which is in fact the default state.

I couldn’t believe this so I called T-Mobile. Guess what … it is worse than that.

Their system actually does let you turn off the paging. However, note: even if you turn off the paging it keeps telling people they can page you!!

In my private correspondence with Lauren, it seems that their support people didn’t, at least at first, see the problem. They thought that turning it off was enough. The problem isn’t that you can’t turn it off. The problem is that even if you do, it keeps prompting people to page you.

I wonder how long this will take to get fixed.

As I joined, they wanted my checking account number so they could autodraft my account each month for my dues. I got no problem with that but they wanted a check. I can provide my bank routing numbers. I can provide my checking account number. But a real check? I don’t use checks. I’ve never ordered any. So I just dropped by my bank on my next trip and had them quickly imprint a “counter check”. Should work.

Then I dropped by LA Fitness to make my initial payment and get the process started. Alas, as part of their automation processs they installed MICR readers on each desk. And rather than TYPE the numbers they “scan” the check. Alas for some reason UNKNOWN … my check would not scan. It was … for the process of getting me signed up … a catastrophic event. The sign up could not proceed. There was no apparent override (or at least they didn’t know about one). The failure of this technology step, the inability of the MICR Reader on the desk of the salesman was about to trash the sale.

Long story short, I went back to the bank, got a new check, went back to LA Fitness, and by then, they had figured out that maybe they didn’t have to use the MICR Reader anyway. But the experience once again showed the prevalent technology issue: Exception Processing: what to do when things go wrong.

Every new computer programmer learns this: 10% of the program is about doing things right … 90% of the program is about checking for and processing errors.  Unfortunately, even as computer programmers learn this they forget that human/non-computer systems also have errors. Like what happens when the MICR reader won’t read the MICR code.

I know why they use the technology to read the MICR. It reduces errors. It reduces mis-typed bank numbers and account numbers. But they didn’t address what to do when that fails.

And for this customer, telling me to go away and come back with another check seems like the wrong answer.