The Email Wars

Often brands have a hard time just saying no to email. Even when they ask at a preference center and at purchase. So when you ask for preferences, remember no means no. Even if you have a pre-existing business relationship as they did with him with a gift card, you need to honor your word when it comes to email. Or else you just might find someone posting your act here or on another blog.

A reader named James forwarded an unsolicited email from Circuit City that we had to post because it’s just so chipper about the fact that they’ve resorted to emailing him out of desperation. It cheerfully proclaims, “Now you’ll be the first to hear the latest news,” before informing him that he’d been “chosen” as one of their “best customers” to receive news that they deem relevant to him.

James says:

I’m sure you can surmise that I never signed up for email alerts to anything from Circuit City. I merely use their website to manage my (rarely used) Circuit City card. It’s good to see they still have the customer in mind.

The best part of the email is where they inform James that, in the future, he’ll get advance notice about “grand openings.” Isn’t that sweet?