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UPDATE March 14/08: A $100 gift card arrived today via registered mail. Am I still disappointed? Yes at the overall experience. Am I going to look a gift horse in the mouth? No. This shall be the last post on this subject. I am appreciative of the gift card, just not as appreciative of the service received to get to this point. I am curious though if everyone received this card, which if so – I must say is a nice show of goodwill. Or perhaps I was one of the loudest complainers. Who knows. If anyone else experienced this, I’d love to get an update – or even a comment/response from someone on the CT team.
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March 12/08
I think everyone must be getting sick of this – I know I’m starting to be, but I promised an update and as much as I’d like to say this story has a happy ending, I’ve been unfortunately disappointed yet again.

For those of you following me on Twitter you’ll know that I received an email from a business analyst at Canadian Tire who came across my blog posts and wanted to help. I was pleasantly surprised, it was obvious he cared about my experience with the brand and wanted to try and change it, even though he didn’t have anything to do with the gift registry program.

We exchanged a few emails and he even went so far as personally contacting the gift registry manager to send them the original emails I’d sent along with my blog posts. He told me someone would be getting back in touch with me shortly. I was starting to think that perhaps the world was good again and that there had been some sort of little glitch somewhere that was going to be fixed. Most importantly, I was starting to feel valued as a customer again. Companies need more employees like this guy who contacted me. I applaud him. He’s been the best experience I’ve had with the brand to date.

I then waited, and waited some more. Then late Friday afternoon(more than 24 hours after my initial conversation with the business analyst), I received in my inbox two automated emails that thanked me for each of my original emails and advised that due to a high volume of emails someone would be in touch with me soon. I was then provided a tracking number, a 1800 number and it was signed “Canadian Tire Customer Service Representative.” Underneath that, they had included the special coding for what type of automated message to send me…

2-English – Auto Response Message (From Jan 4th and beyond)

Those who understand email marketing know you should either turn that notification off, bury it by using multiple hard returns, or put it in white text or something so your reader doesn’t see it. Sure deflated my earlier feelings of being a valued customer to know that everyone who sent a note after January 4th got this message.

I then immediately got a third email that was from the Associate Marketing Manager for the gift registry. It again thanked me for my emails, said my comments were forwarded to the team and indicated that it was a difficult decision for them to make, but they felt it was no longer feasible to continue the registry program. It then told me my gift was being mailed and it would arrive by the end of this coming week.

Disappointment set in. No phone call, no explanation as to why it took so long for auto-responder emails to arrive, and nothing that really addressed what I’ve expressed in my posts. And then to make matters worse, the email was signed with a first initial and last name only and that was it. There was no, please call me if you want to discuss or here’s how to reach me. It was cold. It wasn’t warm and friendly or personal. I now realize it too came from a generic email address. Big mistake. You’re telling me the Associate Marketing Manager doesn’t have a real email address and responds to me from a generic registry email? By not including their actual first name, or contact details I have to wonder if it was actually written by someone else instead just pretending to be a more senior person.

I responded to the email (not having realized I was simply sending to another generic email addy) asking questions about why there was a delay in the emails and if there was a glitch in the system or what it might have been so I could explain this to my blog readers and hopefully make good of the situation. I sent this email on Monday. I’ve yet to hear back and there’s no other contact information in the email for me to reach this first initial, last name manager.

Given the fact that the emails came one after another within minutes of each other – I have to wonder what the problem actually was? A broken email deployment system that hadn’t been checked? Or perhaps it’s a manual deployment every time someone responds. If so – it certainly isn’t checked on a regular basis.

At the end of the day, they (Canadian Tire) just don’t get it – it’s not about the gift anymore (though I really wouldn’t be averse to that snowblower). It’s about making me feel like a valued customer. I may be a homeowner and consequently started forming my brand opinions years ago, but there are many others who at this important life-event stage are just forming relationships with brands and companies. Relationships that could last a lifetime. People who are the future of Canadian Tire’s business and to treat us with cold, impersonal emails that don’t actually explain or address our concerns in a timely fashion is just plain wrong.

As a proud Canadian I try to support Canadian companies when I can, however, I like most others, enjoy being treated like a valued customer who matters to a company. In this case, I feel like nothing but a number and outside of this business analyst, don’t feel like the company cares whether I give them my business or not. So if you really feel that way Canadian Tire, I’m happy to shop elsewhere.