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Rather than make this a rant-and-rave post (which it is, no matter how you slice it), I’m going to try and make this productive for other marketers.

This is an update to the series of Canadian Tire posts regarding the company’s decision to close its version of a gift registry — Celebration Station.

I’ve blogged before that company representatives had indicated I would receive a gift 2-4 weeks after confirming my address with them. It’s now been more than six weeks and there’s been no gift and no further communication. This despite two attempts to contact them via the email address provided for gift registry questions. I even pointed them in the direction of my posts and indicated that I had readers asking for updates.

Quite frankly, I’m appalled at their lack of communication. So if you plan on removing a service you offer your customers, here are a few points to remember:

1. Have a detailed plan in place about how you’re going to go about removing the service and what you’re going to replace it with (if anything), and detail how you plan on addressing it to your customers.

2. Chances are if someone hears you’re going to discontinue something, that is when the product/service will be in full demand. So if you plan on offering a gift or some form of tangible apology offer to your customers, make sure you can fulfill them by adding 40% to your calculation of the number of items you think you need. If you have extra, it can be a great chance to hold a contest for your customers — or even employees for the number of complaints they are likely to have to deal with over this decision.

3. Appoint one person to take point on all communications received (phone calls, emails and monitoring of social networks and blogs etc.) Have a team designed to deal with anything that comes up and prepare a contact strategy that includes a time line for getting back to individuals — and stick to it.

4. Consider changing your telephone on-hold messaging to address concerns customers may have with this change in your offering. Create automated email responses to be sent back to those customers who send you an email. State the time lines you’ve created (and yes, buffer slightly) for getting back to people so they know their email didn’t get lost in some cyberspace vacuum.

5.Care. Care what people are saying and make sure your staff cares too. If neither you nor they do, then you have bigger problems that can’t be addressed by this post.

All in all, if your customers think you care about them and their feelings, chances are they are going to be a little more accepting of issues you might have meeting promises you’ve given them. They may not like it, but I have to say that if I had any communication from Canadian Tire in all of this after the initial “so long, we’re closing” email, this probably wouldn’t be my third blog post about the situation.