JC Penney Emails You To Let You Know They Won't Email You
Reader psionix bought some PJ's from JC Penney for his wife and, upon checkout, chose not to receive any emails from JC Penney. The retailer then emailed him to let him know that they won't be emailing him, and asked him to fill out a survey on why he didn't want to receive any emails from them. Here's what they sent:
While registering as a shopper with jcpenney.com, you chose not to receive our promotional Email. This is being sent to confirm that [redacted] will not receive Email from jcpenney.com. The decision to receive Email is personal and can be influenced for a variety of reasons. In an attempt to better understand and respond to our customers, we would appreciate it if you would answer a short survey on this topic. To participate in the survey, click here. Your responses, and your email address, will remain private and will help us to continue to build a better shopping experience for you, and a stronger relationship with our customers. jcpenney.com has always believed in using only permission-based Email marketing. If, in the future, you decide that you would like to begin receiving our promotional Email you can subscribe at jcpenney.com. Thank you for your participation, and thank you for shopping with us.
Guess what? When we say, don't email us, don't email us. It's really quite simple.
(Photo: scaredofbabies)
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Comments:
It's spelled Penney, not Penny.
...Redaction of some sorts is in order?
@JustThatGuy3: Ugh.
He opted out of PROMOTIONAL emails. Since this is a company he's done business with lately, they still have the right to contact him about his experience.
Be that as it may, it's still :carlface:-inducing.
The post isn't about the email itself. The post is about bothering to email someone to say JCP won't email [tipster] anymore, instead of simply not emailing him.
I actually don't mind these confirmation e-mails because if they do e-mail me, they can't deny that I asked not to be e-mailed because they sent me their confirmation.
i'm psure psionix is psuper psyched you included his email address
In my experience, marketing degrees are not worth the paper they're printed on.
People who work in a corporate marketing department are primarily paid to think of ideas, unfortunately the inmates are running the asylum.
With the exception of the scrutiny applied to campaign cost, there is little or no differentiation between good and bad marketing ideas.
This article is a classic example.
Actually, jcpenny (with no secnod e) redirects you to jcpenney.com. And JustThatGuy3, you are very unpleasant in every single comment you make.
MoveOn did something like this to me too. I never signed up for it, so when I started getting emails I promptly unsubscribed. They then immediately sent me:
1 - Email confirming I unsubscribed
1 - "Sorry to see you go" email
1 - Some sort of customer service/survey/spam thing
Seriously, how hard is it?! It's not even like we had a business relationship; I never signed up for emails in the first place.
@pecan 3.14159265: Yeah, it's an opt-out confirmation e-mail along with a request to -- if he wants to -- provide input as to why he's not interested in promotional e-mail.
I don't see what the problem is here.
The opt-out email survey may be annoying but you can delete it with a click of a button. It seems trivial to whine to consumerist about it, unless you have to fill out the survey to opt out. If they continued to send multiple emails after the opt-out THAT is a problem.
@parkavery: Seriously, how hard is it?! It's not even like we had a business relationship; I never signed up for emails in the first place.
1. From a usability perspective you need to provide confirmation. Do not assume a browser will happily redirect to a splash page and that is good enough.
2. No company is dumb enough to assume you don't want their content. In fact, I do not want them to assume I never want emails. I am doing business with them and I like to receive promotions. However, if I don't want them then I'll say so.
This is not a consumer issue, this is a preference issue. As @edwardso mentions though, if they do not stop after my indication of preference then I'll have a problem with it.
How did they get his e-mail in the first place? Why would anyone ever give her email address to a discount retailer?
For a moment I was wondering how they got his email address in the first place, and then I realized he was probably shopping online. Silly me - I'm picturing him opting out while swiping his credit card at the counter.
If they really, really want the data on why people don't want to get emails, why not have a little survey appear right on the checkout page when someone opts out of receiving email?
@pecan 3.14159265: I agree. I don't see an issue with a confirmation, as long as it didn't come with any promotion.
They do need to be sure that if he does choose to provide info on the survey, that doesn't somehow end up resuming email to him. Some businesses apparently have computers program to add email addresses they get to mailing lists, or worse. In once case I filled out a technical problem report to the DICE.COM web site. It automatically signed me up with an account. I got automated emails thanking me for signing up, and telling me my account was lacking a resume. A few emails back and forth to tech support finally got it undone. But it shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Irony is my favorite!
While not the usual kind of thing that Consumerist complaints are about, it is kind of silly.
Reminds me of how Citibank keeps sending me a letter every month telling me that I've chosen to have my correspondence with Citbank online and my online statement is now ready.
@nakedscience
@Tightlines
Well, excuse me for pointing out an error (in the headline) that immediately detracts from the credibility of the story itself.
Ben, good job for fixing it. One suggestion, though: if you make a correction to a story, you should note that in the story, and leave a link to the erroneous version, rather than just tossing it down the memory hole.
@parkavery: I went through an old email account and unsubscribed to a million junk crap type lists that managed to find their way there over the years. Many I never signed up with and had done no business with. I am still surprised how many of those lists I unsubscribed from still send me emails. It is so frustrating but I have no idea how to stop it.
@Tightlines: Hey, it's the job of the editors to make sure they publish articles without egregious spelling errors. Maybe the OP could have been more polite, but a lot of people have no patience for sloppy editing.
this shouldn't even be a story. it is making something out of nothing. it is obvious that he opted out of promotional emails and not confirmation emails. even if he opted out of ALL JCPenney emails, of course they are going to send a confirmation.
i'd rather them send a confirmation so that i have a record of my choice - AND so that i know they actually received my opt-out choice.
JCPenney has done nothing wrong here - no reason to bash them for doing what really is the right thing. if they didn't even email him the confirmation - then there is no kind of record of his choice or confirmation of their acceptance of his choice.
The consumerist is generally all about helping the consumer. Lately it has turned into a place to make businesses look bad that even do nothing wrong. Most of the stories are legitimate and many companies screw up OFTEN, but why something like this? Slow news day?
@JustThatGuy3: Typos should really just be emailed to the writer.
As to your suggestion, I don't think readers are better served by having a record of every single fixed typo.
JUSTTHATGUY3 - Normally I refrain from commenting but you are such a D-bag that I couldn't resist. Did you apply for the Consumerist editorial position that was posted a bit ago? If not, maybe you should have since you find it so necessary to give Ben the 'good job' card and then proceed to give him your anal-to-the-max advice. Also, I noticed this little comment box states, "If your comments are excessively self-promotional, OBNOXIOUS, or even worse, boring, you will be banned from commenting." Do yourself (and the other less psychotically critical Consumerist readers) a favor and shut up now.
@ JustThatGuy -- I'm with Ben. I don't need stories bumped because of typos or whatever all day. Also, I copyedit all day, every day, and you know what? Being petty and self-rightous about typos does not actually make people better spellers. In fact, it can actually lead people to make assumptions about YOU instead of the person who made the typo? Fun fact you can use.
@ The Awesome people who work for Consumerist: Does consumerist use the Ban Hammer ? If so, please use it on JustThatGuy, Stat.
He's not whining. He stated his preference and it's not be observed. Amazon is doing a similar annoying thing. I opted out of their emails but I continued to get them because I only unsubsribed from promo email but not new product emails or partner emails. Give me a break. Marketers need to think long term. All this pestering leaves a bad impression of the brand.
-Mark as Spam-
@UX4themasses:
1 - I understand what you're saying, but I think it's funny that, from a usability perspective, I never provided confirmation that I wanted emails. I just randomly started receiving stuff from them one day (is someone signing me up for random crap?), which addresses...
2 - We had no business relationship. I didn't sign up. It's a pretty big jump to assume I want MoveOn content any more than I want V1agra emails. If I had bought something from them or been filling out forms on their site, sure. I'm fair game and I get that. But that wasn't the case.
Yes, spam happens and businesses buy marketing lists all the time, but the Can-Spam Act DOES require a clear way to unsubscribe too. I don't think it's such a big ask for legitimate companies to comply.
I agree with all the folks above that I can't reply to (thanks, retarded comment system) that this is a non-issue. This wasn't an ad, it was a one-time question that came right after he ORDERED products from the store: "Would you complete a survey about why you don't want our email?" Perhaps they could learn something from it. Perhaps the OP chose not to because he used to get those emails and thought they came too often, or didn't have any good deals.
Giving him the chance to speak his mind about it is certainly a good thing. It's asking for constructive criticism.
If he chose not to complete it (since I can't imagine most people would take the time to) all he had to do was ignore it, delete it, or keep it around to prove that he opted out in case the opt-out failed to be honored in the future.
Is that guy Lute Olson?
that face palm image sez it all....