This slot is normally reserved for complaints, since that’s pretty much all I get on this site. But every now and then, a company will actually read a grievance and respond.
That’s what happened with FedEx last week.
On Tuesday, I wrote about the worst unsubscribe screen ever. It was actually a series of three screens that forced me to surrender all kinds of personal information before I could finally get off the FedEx mailing list.
Well, FedEx was listening.
Later that week, Andrew Bailey, a senior marketing director for the company, sent the following note:
I am responsible for the FedEx Preference Center and definitely welcome and appreciate your candid feedback.
You should have not been prompted to fill out a business survey when attempting to unsubscribe and we’re currently investigating to ensure other customers do not have the same experience.
You would be happy to know that FedEx is currently revamping our Preference Center to not only be more customer centric, but one that offers our customers a lot of variability in what they do and do not want to receive from us, e.g. no marketing offers, but interested in receiving “service delay” emails.
I welcome your review and feedback when we’ve completed the revamp and I’m confident, our new Preference Center will be one that adheres to best practices and has 100% focus on our customers, thanks!
It’s nice that FedEx is paying attention to what others are saying about it. Online reputation management is an important part of every company’s marketing efforts these days.
But I’m a little concerned that FedEx is treating the symptom rather than finding a cure. As I noted in the initial post, its print on demand service was so difficult to use that I abandoned my order. That should be a cause for concern, too.
Still, this unexpected response suggests that FedEx cares, and for that, it deserves to be recognized.
(Photo: erikleenaars/Flickr)
