Ho-Ho-Ho! It’s getting to be Christmas time and the high season for catalog shopping is on.
No one seems to know this better than Land’s End. For the second year in a row my mailbox has been stuffed with barrages of Land’s End catalogs featuring Men’s wear, Women’s wear and kidswear. By prank or by computer mishap, the catalogs don’t stop coming in names of people that I’ve never heard of, and apparently the only way to discontinue the mailings is with a C code that’s on the back of every catalog.
Last year around this time I spent approximately a half an hour on the phone with a customer service representative reading off numerous C codes in order to remove them from their mailing list. There must have been more names because this year the catalogs are back.
I called the 800 number again this morning to have two more names removed and requested that no more catalogs be sent to my home. The customer service rep told me that there was no way to remove the mailings
by address and suggested that I call them back when I get more catalogs to have them removed. Not exactly the most user friendly way of doing business.
Knowing a little about databases, it seems hard to believe that a techie whiz at Land’s End isn’t able to delete entries by an address field.
In today’s cash strapped world, I wonder why any company – big or small – wants to waste money on advertising that won’t ever earn a return?
Sadly, the only destination for Land’s End advertising dollars is going to be the local recycling center, where it will at least do a bit of good..