Rate this article:
Average rating:
Total votes: 0
The next time you think of using company software to “secretly” express your feelings about your clients or coworkers, think again. Sales rep Jim's seemingly clever software antics led to his embarrassment, as a record of his feelings made a mistaken public debut. Here's his story.
My partners and I were very good at determining who were the decision makers, who were potential inside advocates, who were tire kickers, etc. among our prospective clients, but we still maintained contact with all of them, because our sales cycle was long and clients' circumstances and staff often changed.
Many businesses use software to keep information on clients and potential clients, as ours did. We thought it would be clever to add a database field for comments that described each client, with titles like "Financial Iron Fist," "The Power and the Money" and so on.
Our cleverness collided with our cash flow when we were horrified to learn that a new employee had been sending out our newsletter with these descriptive fields listed as the titles of the recipients! While the “Financial Iron Fist” may have gotten a kick out if it, plenty of the others were probably not as flattered (judging by the names we chose).
It was just a matter of time before I saw the fallout. I was giving a presentation to a client when, following the technical portion of the presentation, the client's technical decision maker stood up, looked me in the eye and said, "Well, if the 'Computer Dweeb' part of this is done, I'll get back to work." Not surprisingly, it took quite a while to get that individual to buy into our company as a cooperative partner.
Postmortem
Jim learned three valuable lessons. First, he should never have entered derogatory information in a company database -- even if these “titles” wouldn't have been released via newsletter, there's no telling who might have read them. Secondly, he should have paid attention to detail when reassigning the task of sending the newsletter; one should always be careful to address all potential questions when reassigning any such tasks. Thirdly, he should not have let anything in print leave his office without the editorial blessings of a key executive or someone in the position to give approval.
Remember that the purpose of your written communication with clients is to motivate readers to take action, not demotivate them to reconsider doing business with you.
