![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutOkay, _yes_ I can be that offended. But when I'm busy deleting "special offers" from the usual suspects in my e-mail inbox (Sierra Trading Post, drugstore.com, etc.), I barely notice the subject. This one, however, really jumped out at me:
[my first name deleted] -- Columbus Discovered America. You'll Discover Great Savings.
Hey, B&N: I was feeling a little bad about completely abandoning you, after shopping on and off at your stores for a decade or more. Just because Prime shipping and the kindle make it almost impossible to shop for book-like things anywhere else is no excuse. I like your display tables. You serve decent coffee. If you had vegan or even just dairy free goodies in any of the stores I've been to on the East Coast, I might still be a regular.
But I don't feel guilty any more.
Someone in the publicity department needs sensitivity training. Columbus "Discovered" America? Someone should have told that to the millions about to die of smallpox and other diseases which arrived with the explorer.
ETA: After further consideration, I unsubbed to future e-mails and found a way to contact customer service via their website to explain to them why I did so.
[my first name deleted] -- Columbus Discovered America. You'll Discover Great Savings.
Hey, B&N: I was feeling a little bad about completely abandoning you, after shopping on and off at your stores for a decade or more. Just because Prime shipping and the kindle make it almost impossible to shop for book-like things anywhere else is no excuse. I like your display tables. You serve decent coffee. If you had vegan or even just dairy free goodies in any of the stores I've been to on the East Coast, I might still be a regular.
But I don't feel guilty any more.
Someone in the publicity department needs sensitivity training. Columbus "Discovered" America? Someone should have told that to the millions about to die of smallpox and other diseases which arrived with the explorer.
ETA: After further consideration, I unsubbed to future e-mails and found a way to contact customer service via their website to explain to them why I did so.
Here's what B&N customer service had to say
Date: 2010-10-08 06:45 pm (UTC)Paragraph 1: Thanks for your email.
Paragraph 2: You haven't opted out of promo e-mails, so we did that for you. Might take a week to take effect. [Regular readers know I had, in fact, already done this before sending the e-mail. Interesting.]
Paragraph 3: If you want to change your promo e-mail setting, here's how.
Paragraph 4, in total: "We regret the email you received was offensive to you."
Not _quite_ the standard non-apology: they didn't use the word "if". But still, a non-apology. We aren't sorry we did it, we don't think it was changeworthy behavior, but we are sorry that you are pissed off about it. Just not very much.
I'm a little amazed that I had turned off promotional emails, but it wasn't visible _even to the customer service rep_ that I had done so. Yikes. That's some amazingly bad IT.