The power of the imperfect email
Sometimes, things are imperfectly perfect.
It was a very rare, yet very warm, summers day and I had a relatively rammed schedule of meetings on the road, back in the day.
Thankfully I had a bit of a gap whilst driving up the M40 towards the Midlands, and I had a choice. Do I stop at a Costa Coffee for some dreadful hot coffee - on an already hot day - or do I make a swift detour to Bicester Village?
For those that don’t know, Bicester Village is an ‘upmarket’ designer outlet village just north of Oxford. And, it’s outdoors!
There was no choice to be made really! I’d visited a couple of months before, back when the weather was typically British, and saw an ice cream kiosk that looked *amazing*. Now was my chance!
Ice cream bought, I decided to pop into a couple of the newer shops at that end of the Village, and didn’t really expect to buy anything until I saw an amazing baseball cap in Brioni.
When I say amazing, it really was. 100% Cashmere, branding was nearly non existent… although to be fair it was something to be stored for a colder day. And when I saw the price - wow. I think it was £40 or £50. To give you an idea of how good that was, the same type of cap albeit with a bigger logo retails for £488 today.
A luxury cap at New Era prices. So I bought two.
During the checkout process I was asked for the usual details - my name, my email… and my heart sank. Yet another soulless email list for me to unsubscribe to. Let’s be honest, whilst I like nice stuff, I’m not really Brioni’s target market, and there stuff is best described as ‘spenny’!
Imagine my surprise when I received the following email (note, I’ve deleted the sender name):
Dear Mr Reader
I hope to find you well?
I would like to thank you for your recent visit to our Brioni boutique.
It was my pleasure to meet and assist you with your new cap.
I am confident they will be an excellent addition to wardrobe.
Wish you enjoy the day in Bicester village,
Please do not hesitate to let me know if you need any further assistance and we looking forward to your next visit.
Kind Regards
No sign up to a mailing list, nothing. Then this, about a month or so later:
Dear Carl
I hope this email finds you well.
It been around a month since you were here last and i want to take the opportunity this afternoon to contact you and find out if all is fine and well with the cap you purchased with me when you were here last?
Have you had the opportunity to use and wear it yet?
As always,if i can be of any further assistance to you,please do not hesitate to contact me as it is always a pleasure to assist my loyal clients in anyway that i can.
Finally,I hope you and your family have a lovely day and i will look forward to hopefully welcoming you back our boutique here in Bicester village again soon.
Kind Regards
Imperfectly perfect.
Some people might complain that this is dreadful, unprofessional, and that the assistant should be sacked for the grammatical issues in the emails.
But you know what? It was clear from his ethnicity that English may not be his first language, but more importantly… these were sent from him.
Not Mailchimp, not some flashy CRM system, but him.
He took the time to type these, and whilst he probably has no idea who I am and just noted it down in a diary, the fact that he took this time (and was allowed to take this time) to send the emails for what was probably their smallest value sale in the year is just mind-blowing.
How many of us feel that some of our lower value customers are not worth personal attention?
Well, I guess the proof in the pudding is that I bought an Alpaca overcoat from the store maybe a year or so later. Again, a tremendous bargain (no chance I’d pay the six or seven grand they sell for at retail), but I know for sure that part of my purchasing decision was those emails.
Those imperfect emails.
Carl Reader is a WH Smith Bestselling Author and international keynote speaker with a real passion for helping people do better. There are two ways to learn more about Carl! You can either follow him on Social Media if you’re just curious (@carlreader on most platforms), or if you’d like to learn a little more about what he does on stage, through content and in the media from a commercial perspective, you can visit his website at www.carlreader.com
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