How Would Your Customers Feel?
Imagine that a customer — especially one you don’t know that well — is standing at your cash register. He simply wants to give you his money, take his merchandise and get on to whatever pressing business is at hand. You, on the other hand, start demanding his name, address, phone number and (gasp!) that most personal of information, his e-mail address. How do you think he will react? Probably about as well as he would if you donned a khaki uniform and jackboots and demanded that, “You vill hand ouffer your identity papers…now!”
Any time you ask a customer for personal information, he or she has a right to know how you intend to use it. For people enrolling in courses or signing up for trips, this is easy. You can explain this information will make it easier for you to contact them with updates and changes in schedules, to monitor their progress with self-study materials and provide other information that is a normal part of the learning or travel process.
You and your staff should also develop a quick and easy way of explaining how, when and where you intend to use customer contact information that applies to everyone. It can be as simple as:
“If you don’t mind, we’d like to get some contact information from you. We use this to send out periodic newsletters and sale flyers; we also publish a monthly e-mail newsletter and occasionally send out notices on special events and activities. We don’t share this information with anybody, and you can get off our mailing list at any time just by asking.”
Once customers understand how you intend to use their information, they will be much more likely to share it.
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