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December 12, 2007
Put the Person in Personality
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Experience
We're always saying that every organization has a personality. Unfortunately some have the personality of a robot, and that's not a very good way to do business.
A while back I gave up on stamps and the U.S. postal service for paying my bills. I started paying them online through my bank. It works great and I save (what do stamps cost nowadays?) 43 cents for every bill I pay online.
Except my mortgage company has the personality of a robot. And apparently the internal systems of a robot. Every time I pay my mortgage online I get a letter in the mail from my mortgage company explaining that my payment came by overnight express and I could save money by signing up for their auto-pay system (for only $11 per month!). Apparently my bank is making the payment to my mortgage company by overnight express. But I could care less. It doesn't cost me anything. Yet my mortgage company insists on offering a "better" solution. Even better, I get the same letter every month, going on six months now.
My mortgage company must have internal systems set up to trigger specific responses. It's not a bad plan. It means they can make helpful suggestions to their customers. The problem is it must be a completely automated system. Nobody ever realizes that they've sent me half-a-dozen letters already and I'm still doing it the same way. At some point wouldn't it be cheaper to call me up and see what the deal is? They could stop sending me letters and save themselves 43 cents.
Sometimes giving your organization some personality is as simple as using real people.
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