JetBlue Addresses Your Email To "Dear Mr. Soandso"
JetBlue can be so cute sometimes. Apparently, they recently sent out and email addressed to Mr. Soandso explaining how much they missed all the Mr. Soandsos who had not flown with them in a year.
"Dear Mr. Soandso," it says, "We haven't seen you in a year and the truth is, we miss you! We really wish you would jet out of town so we can spend some quality time together..."
They then apologized for the "technical error with our database."
How JetBlue has fallen... [Penchuk]
Mr. So and So [One Sided War] (Thanks, G. Y.!)
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Comments:
Meh, they wrote up some copy using SoAndSo and accidently released it. I know personally I've accidently sent out emails that have said [Merge:FirstName] [Merge:LastName].
@valarmorghulis: My guess: It was a placeholder from the person drafting the template, which the mass mailing system was supposed to fix. Unfortunately, the exact string for the placeholder probably did not match between the person and the machine. Thus, we get this.
Took me way too long to read "Soandso" like I should have. I'm sitting here trying to read it backwards, and then realize how dumb I am. Oh well.
Agreed.
I think they should be hung out to dry for calling it a 'technical issue with the database' instead of what it really was; poor execution.
Haha, somebody got fired.
If I was in charge there, I would've played it down, acted 'hip' about it. And started referring to all of our executives as "CEO Soandso" or "CFO Soandso" - see, not a big deal.
If I got an email like that, I would have thought it was a cute joke, and probably had a nice little chuckle at it.
Seems harmless.
How is this a consumer issue? JetBlue made a minor error, they apologized for it, and are probably a little embarrassed. If anyone is genuinely hurt by the mistake, they need to take themselves a little less seriously.
I hope that is the worst thing that ever happens to me with an airline from now until I die. People get offended over such minor bullshit. Its not like they said Dear ASSHOLE
@eskimo81: Agreed. If I were them instead of saying it was a technical glitch I'd have said, "OK, we screwed up a little there... but you have to admit it was KINDA funny, right?"
I kind of have to agree this is a non-story. It was a typo, and not even an offensive one at that. Marketing databases get fubared all the time, and it's a silly, sloppy mistake.
If you're blogging about this like it's the end of the world, you are micromanaging your life on a molecular level.
"How JetBlue has Fallen"? REALLY? On a very recent poll that was on linked on THIS VERY WEBSITE, JetBlue still has consistently high customer satisfaction marks.
This happens a lot with automated emails, that's probably the default field value if the templating engine fails to load a user name. It's much better than sending out an email revealing your internal web code as I've seen before. It could have looked like:
Dear SURNAME USER.LAST_NAME
@Murph1908: it's very possible that the technical issue was that the database info didn't feed into the emails properly.
For a minute I thought there actually was a person with that last name "Soandso"
I think it is rather funny. Nobody is perfect, and this is just an example of that. I do not see how this could be found as a problem or offensive to anyone. It's just an honest mistake.
@eskimo81: Me too, I thought it was supposed to be a little joke. I don't see what the big deal is. As long as it were coming from someone like JetBlue, and not my bank.
It's kinda cute, funny, and harmless. I'm frankly just relieved that the placeholder wasn't "Asshole Customer" or "Money Pump" or something similar...
@Mary:
I've had that happen with mail merges so I agree with that. It could very well have done that and someone who was in a hurry didn't notice until they were already sent.
@Colage: It's a consumer issue because if United did it, they would send a follow up email demanding that you either legally change your name to Soandso or risk losing your frequent flier account on the grounds that the names don't match..
@Mary:
Because the email template was left with the placeholder instead of the merge field.
Somebody didn't do a good job of proofreading, and they blame it on the database.
I love jetblue. It's amazing what a little tv can do for your mood on a flight.
@BuddyGuyMontag: Chillax. I assume Meg posted this for our (cheerful) amusement. "How JetBlue has Fallen" is the title of one of the source articles, not something Meg wrote herself.
The story here is that JetBlue has customer service has stationery with a printed caption that reads "An apology from JetBlue Airways."
Wow, they must do a LOT of apologizing.
Very cute! This is how us overworked IT software developers get a laugh on the job. I'll bet someone was told to work overtime and it was 1:00 in the morning..... Signed, Overworked IT Person (who does NOT work for JetBlue)
It could have been worse. Earlier this week ZDNet sent out an alert for their Hardware 2.0 blog that asked why Apple didn't include certain features on the iPhone like "cunt and past". The author didn't even really apologize because everyone was commenting about it in the article. They thought it was a laugh riot.
Speaking of improper address, I had to supply a name and email to qualify for a promotion once. I used my junk account and signed my name as "[nameofcompany] Sucks".
Well, not only did that work, but a few weeks later I started getting unsolicited mail from other companies, greeting me with that pseudonym.
Mr. Sucks was not happy.
I emailed the original company and accused them of selling my email address but they denied it. I replied to point out that the name was pretty unique. No response after that.
Still lots of junk, though.
More probable is that whoever was setting it up forgot to replace the plaintext "Mr. Soandso" with the refrences to the database with the title and lastname.
Man I love pure conjecture.