You can’t fake personal

April 11, 2007

Yesterday I received a card from my bank. On the front was the bank’s logo. Inside, hastily scribbled with handwriting like a 10-year old was the following message:

Corey – Thanks for banking with us!
- Staff

And that was it.

I know why I received this card. My bank, a major regional bank with branches all over South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, wants to look homier. More personable. People want their banks to know who they are. They don’t want to be another number, another ledger on the bankroll of Wells Fargo or US Bank.

So my bank sent me a personalized card.

Except it didn’t feel personal – it felt scripted and hollow.

First of all, my card reeked of assembly line scribbling. The words were the same as every other card that had come before. There was no mention of the accounts I held, or any recent activity, or anything that would separate my card from anyone else’s. There was no personalized aspect to it at all, aside from the name.

Second of all, the name was wrong. My wife Kerrie shares this account with me. Her name should have been on this card as well. Another strike – they couldn’t even bother to get the account names correct.

It all reminds me of the Vice President of a company I used to work at. As managers, we were required to give our team members birthday cards to show the company cared. I took great pains to make these cards personal – to give something more than the shallow scribbles that were the minimum required.

However, the Vice President (who was in charge of sending out the manager’s cards) would simply write “Happy Birthday on the 24th” and sign his name. He would send out every card at the beginning of the month, regardless of the birth date, leading to me getting my birthday card nearly three weeks before my birthday even occurred. They were assembly line products. There was no feeling in them whatsoever aside from “I’ve got to get this done.”

Sure. I know. My bank has a lot of cards to write. They have a lot of people to connect to. That’s not the point. The point is making it look like there’s no other customer but the one you’re writing to. There’s no one else in then entire world that the bank would rather talk to, cash checks from and start savings accounts for.

If a business is going to try to play the personal slant, they’d better be ready to take the extra steps needed to ensure the message gets across. Don’t just pull the customer’s name from a list – know the customer. Have ads that connect to the customer, not ads that tell the customer what the bank should be.

Try as you may, if someone can’t be personal, they’ll never seem personal.

The simple fact is: you can’t fake personal.

Filed Under Marketing, Criticism

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