For years I have suggested to people who run businesses that they try calling themselves some time and see what happens.
And for about the same number of years I have passed on something I read to the effect that the single thing in modern life that pisses people off most is automated telephone answering machines.
To this I now add people in call centres whose accents I simply cannot understand.
All this I recalled when I read this today from Denny Hatch:
“Nothing drives me crazier than the voice-mail jail that certain organizations have instituted. They start with the following recorded message:
“Your call is important to us …”
Whereupon I am given a world-class runaround of confusing choices―all recorded―that takes me further and further into the corporate labyrinth. One wrong choice and I am sent back to “GO.” Finally I get:
“All our representatives are currently busy … However, your call is important to us …”
What that message is really saying: “We’re having happy hour here in India and you are a big fat pain in the ass.”
Denny is a National American Treasure when it comes to marketing. He knows what works – and what doesn’t – and why.
A month or so ago I did a piece on his new report The Secrets of Emotional Hot-Button Copywriting, which features the best mailings of the last 20 years and the emotional triggers that made them so powerful..
Only Denny could have put it together, because Denny has this astonishing archive of material going back way to 1984 – thousands upon thousands of mailings – and the appeals that work in the mail tend to work in other media.
The big problem we all face as writers is “How the hell do I begin?” – and that’s where Denny’s report is such a help, and why I call it the Copy Thieves’ Almanac. I actually adapted one of the examples for some work I was doing for a client.
Anyhow that piece I wrote a month ago got a lot of reaction from people – so if you’re interested, you can get the report at: http://tinyurl.com/29a5mv5.
What amazes me is just how many people nowadays want to write better copy. When I started at this game hardly anybody knew what a copywriter was.
Today's Bird Dropping really pulled my emotional trigger. I too hate these voice mail systems with a passion.
My local branch of the Royal Bank of Canada is about a half-mile from my home. My province is 99.3 per cent unilingual anglophone. When I dial the local telephone number of my branch the first instruction I'm given is “For service in English, press 1”.
How bloody stupid is that? I can't talk to a local rep' just up the road without first letting their machines know that I want to speak English … in a province where no-one speaks French!
Idiots. And liars, to boot. How stupid do they think we are? They say these voice mail systems were instituted “to allow us to serve you better”, when we know from experience the systems were brought in to shield them from having to dirty their hands dealing with the unwashed masses, in person.
That they have the gall to try to pass this off as improved customer service, when it in fact provokes universal rage, is a mark of how out of touch they are. But of course they have grown so large, and make such obscene profits, that apparently they can afford not to care about losing market share.
Here endeth the rant. I will definitely be getting a copy of Denny's new book. Thanks for alerting us to its availability.
(And I'll bet very few of those to whom you suggested they try calling themselves took your advice, Drayton.)