The “Cop Call”
Today I got a call from some random “agency” that was said to represent the police something or other organization. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for laws that make sense and the enforcement of those laws. I’m not interested in randomly handing money to some police charity because the system they represent sold them up a creek years ago. The caller tried to use what I call the “Intimidating Authoritative Cop Voice” when speaking to me about this organization he had called me for. I quickly got the impression that the effort was to sound scary and I needed to pay not only attention, but to actually give money. That’s a hard pass for me as I really do not subscribe to being coerced into anything and especially don’t appreciate it being done by an agency that has a level of built-in authority already. The key here is that they somehow forget that being a police officer is a servants’ role and it’s not for them to “be in power” although many seem to lean that way once they are badged. It’s a shame really.
The changes in viewpoints these days, come in the form of how we as a society react to these intimidation tactics. I simply hung up on the guy mid sentence because I wasn’t going to hand over a single red cent and know that most of these charities keep way more of the money they bring in than they give to the very persons they claim to represent.
“The Sales Call”
As I was writing, I got a call from a local motorcycle dealership, Harley Davidson to be specific. I was already in a bit of a spicy mood so I let that be my guide as I chatted with the caller. He didn’t identify himself when I answered…strike one. Asked for me by name as if he was hunting me. Strike two. He really called to tell me about some promotions his dealership was offering. I let him proceed and it was clear that there had been no homework done or effort made to be prepared when he called me. He stumbled to get out that they were selling motorcycles with a deferred payment plan until….next month. Strike three.
Rather than behave in the manner that most might have, I asked if there were any other promotions going on and when he said “No”. I nicely said, “Your marketing department isn’t really doing their job, are they?” The defeated response was kind of hard to hear but his answer was that it was really his fault and he was new and unprepared. I offered him some freed advice and to take a look at my file in the system and discover that I had just bought a brand new Motorcycle this same year and had another I bought the year before. I proceeded to tell him that I really like these bikes but the idea of buying yet another made no sense and to call me with such an offer was not very good marketing. I also told him that if he had called me with that info and told me they were having a killer sale on a stage IV upgrade, that would have had my interest. He knew nothing of such a deal and didn’t even offer to go check and call me back if it was an option.
The take aways of the two calls.
“Cop Call” was a lazy effort in attempting to collect money using an old method of powerful voice and police backing to get a donation to a charity. Today’s educated society doesn’t fall for this trick easily and it’s usually more successful on the less aware.
“Sales Call” was a lazy attempt to offer indebtedness and a motorcycle to an already proven customer who clearly had some level of interaction with the dealership. It was, “I’ll give you a motorcycle if you will spend the next 6 years making payments on it”. What they didn’t do was learn why I was interacting with them in the first place. In my case, I had already purchased a motorcycle and had it serviced with them.
What are we learning?
There are bots and artificial learning algorithms designed to scour databases and mountains of information. You can buy a Health tracking watch and it will know when your pulse quickens. It also knows where you are so if you were, for example, in a dealership looking at an exciting product, that fancy watch just might be able to send a message that your pulse seems to quicken when you are looking at that desirable object. It also could be made to know if you were excited about closing on a deal for similar reasons. That info could be used to signal to the sales team that they are close on striking a deal. This is the level of detail about people that can be collected and then used as a way to turn the marketing machine onto the would be customer.
Because of this high level of information that can be collected, it makes no sense for any organization to be so poorly prepared or to use such old and outdated tactics to appeal to donor/customers. It’s hard enough with people having far less disposable income than they did not so long ago.
There’s a transference of power to those who figure out how to use the new datamining tools and those who choose to remain lazy and continue to do things the old school way. Old school isn’t going to work forever and one day it will leave you on the side of the road asking yourself, “What happened?”.
Changes aren’t new and it’s been going on for a very long time. The rate that it’s happening has in fact increased and it makes it difficult to stay on top of your game. It’s easy to try to just continue to do things they way they’ve always been done but you will eventually have to adapt.
Rowland Ramble - 