I have been with Genesis Energy for 12 years. I’ve spent about $20,000 – $25,000 with them in that time.
6 months ago they did something that made me furious, and this morning they did something else.
That’s twice in 6 months!
Will they get the next $20,000 that I am likely to spend on electricity in the next 12 years?
(Yes, probably. I’m too lazy to change, and they’re the cheapest)
What made me furious 6 months ago?
I had been receiving my bills by email as attached pdf’s for 5 years (I think they were the first to start doing it). It was an awesome setup. I felt that I was doing my thing for the environment, and it was super convenient.
But that all changed 6 months ago. Genesis announced that they were no longer doing that (which took 1 click to view), they now required this process:
- Visit the Genesis Energy website
- Have several attempts at remembering your username and password
- Click about 3 levels into the account to find your bill
- Download the pdf
- Repeat this process every month
I complained at the time and asked them to keep my set up as it was. They explained they couldn’t.
Oh well.
What made me furious this morning?
I got an email this morning telling me to sign up for Brownie points. The thing is, I am already enrolled. – FAIL!
Why send this email out to people it is not relevant to? It’s confusing.
Anyway, I thought I’d hit “reply” button and let them know I’m already enroled. But the email bounced because it is “no-reply@genesisenergy.co.nz”. – FAIL!
The “reply” button is the most natural button in the world to press but Genesis Energy has disabled it. It’s like a slap in the face. It says “we don’t want to hear from you so shut up”.
So I clicked on the “contact us” hyperlink at the bottom of the email instead and got this contact form:
What do you notice about this contact form?
There are 11 fields! – FAIL!
How much information do you need from me just to send a friggen email?
Worst of all, the Consumer Number is compulsory so I have to dig up an old invoice to find my consumer number (surely my email address is enough to find me in the system?). – FAIL!
What’s the point of this rant?
My point is this. What are you doing to annoy your most loyal customers?
Is the door to your restaurant sticky? Is it hard to find your phone number on your website? Do you impose a system on your customers that makes it easy for you, but annoying for them?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The Brownie Points email was actually asking you to – Wait for it you’re going to love this! – To sign up for ‘Online Billing’. That’s where instead of receiving your paper invoice you can log into Your Account and view it online! The service that you first told them you wanted to revert back to their original system of just emailing you your invoice as a PDF! bahahah!
Incidentally there is no mention at all of signing up for ‘Brownie Points’, it’s an incentive to get bonus Brownie Points IF you sign up for Online Billing.
If you actually read and understood the email properly rather than your half arsed glance you may have come up with the following argument instead which I fully support.
What if you have been receiving ‘Online Billing’ this whole time? Why don’t you get rewarded for your loyalty? You never got bonus Brownie Points when you took this offer up before everyone else, why are you disadvantaged?!
Well, if that’s the case the subject line of the email should have said “Would you like to get a pdf of your bill by email?”, and not “Reward yourself with Brownie Points”
re: 11 fields in the comment form, consumer number never changes, what if customer types their email address in wrong ? what if Genesis dont have your latest email address so cant match your details ?.
These fields might take and extra 30 seconds to fill out but could save admin people minutes by having all the details at hand.
You get your request tended to quicker and Genesis save time and money so they can continue giving you best possible prices.
I dont work for them, but develop websites for a living and this is normal business practice for a large coporate.
Mabey if it was car painter or plumber a less detailed form would suffice.
Also do you read the subject line and make 100% assumption about an email before reading it in detail ?
Thanks Heylin for your comments.
Yes, those are all great reasons why Genesis has set up things how they have. It’s just a shame they couldn’t find a middle ground which is convenient for them and the customer.
Yes I assume the subject line is an accurate representation of the emails content (just like I do for news headlines). Doesn’t it make you furious if someone sends you an email without a subject line?