> "First, is it really that big a deal you got an email that looked like it was from someone personally but may have been automated"
That by itself is not the big deal - plenty of emails are automated yet written in a personal manner (Dear Mr. Smith, etc etc) - but this one was deliberately deceptive. It purported to have looked at the customer's website, when it all likelihood nothing of the sort happened.
That's what left a bad taste in my mouth from the whole thing - it's scummy and misleading, hardly something you'd want to project onto your potential customers.
Oh it's not about insincerity - I think we're all very used to "we mean it but we don't" doublespeak from companies nowadays.
It's about the fact that they practically lied in their communication about what they have done - sure, this isn't especially scandalous, but it is low.
If they had some canned stuff like "we're sure you're doing great things, and would love to work with you individually to tailor our product to your needs... yadi yada" that'd be a-ok.
But they had a bot pretend that they actually visited my site and looked at my company's offerings... that's pretty lame.
Comments
> "First, is it really that big a deal you got an email that looked like it was from someone personally but may have been automated"
That by itself is not the big deal - plenty of emails are automated yet written in a personal manner (Dear Mr. Smith, etc etc) - but this one was deliberately deceptive. It purported to have looked at the customer's website, when it all likelihood nothing of the sort happened.
That's what left a bad taste in my mouth from the whole thing - it's scummy and misleading, hardly something you'd want to project onto your potential customers.
It probably works well for a majority of their signups. More smart than scummy, imho.
I don't disagree with the sincerity issue, but again, it only appears insincere to you.
Oh it's not about insincerity - I think we're all very used to "we mean it but we don't" doublespeak from companies nowadays.
It's about the fact that they practically lied in their communication about what they have done - sure, this isn't especially scandalous, but it is low.
If they had some canned stuff like "we're sure you're doing great things, and would love to work with you individually to tailor our product to your needs... yadi yada" that'd be a-ok.
But they had a bot pretend that they actually visited my site and looked at my company's offerings... that's pretty lame.