A few weeks back, one of my clients suggested I look into a company called MetricNet. We’d been discussing the topic of “benchmarking” and he had been impressed with what MetricNet was doing in that regard. So off I went into Web World to look them up. Turns out they are fairly new with fairly impressive credentials, including an Ex-VP from META Group. Their site was simple, well laid out and informative, and their mission in life, they said, was “to provide you with the benchmarks you need to run your business more effectively.” I am not really a cheerleader for call center benchmarking, but I was intrigued. There was an invitation to learn more by signing up for their Webinar, so I clicked the button, filled out the registration, got my confirmation back and put it aside.

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Later that day I received an email (a real email from a real person) informing me that my request to join the webinar had “been denied by the organizer” and that I was no longer registered. That seemed odd. Perhaps it was oversubscribed, or there was some other perfectly reasonable explanation. So I wrote back to the sender to say that I was interested in the webinar and would he (yes, he) please either register me or explain why my request was “denied”. No response. Not that day. Not the next day. Not ever.

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I figured that was that. But no. I began getting regular emails asking me to register for their webinar. I wrote back explaining what had happened, and asking for either an explanation of the denial or to be removed from their mailing list…. since clearly I was persona non-grata for some reason. Again, this was to a person, not a generic email box. No response. Not that day. Not the next day. Not ever. So now I am regularly invited to participate in a webinar that the sponsor denies my participation in for reasons they do not care to explain.

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So is there some point to all this besides me whining? Two come to mind.

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First, automation is our friend in the call center world. We could not do our jobs without it.  But much like the autopilot in an airplane, automation should never be left to run the business without adult supervision. We need to check it, regularly, to make sure it is doing what we want it to do and think that it is doing. This is especially true when it is interacting with our customers (or potential customers). Do we really want an automated process to be annoying them (or worse) and not even be aware of it? I am thinking most of us would say no. Yet how often do we test our automated response mechanisms to see how (and what) they are doing?

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The second thing I am going to do as a result of this experience is to monitor my Spam folders more carefully to make sure that nothing important gets flushed with the Viagra ads, incredible opportunities from Nigeria and fabulous work at home offers that flood into it daily.

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As for MetricNet, all I want at this point is to be off their mailing list.