When does being Customer Centric become digital stalking?

We are big buyers of music at CRICKET. We like independent record shops though when we’re busy Amazon becomes the default supplier. Yesterday the latest CD from Neil Young & Crazy Horse was released – a minority taste perhaps but each to their own. We also like a bit of analogue in our digital world, so late last night I re-visited Amazon to see when the limited edition triple vinyl edition was being released.

 

First thing this morning I followed a colleague’s link to the excellent Pursuitist website and a feature on the late Steve Jobs luxury yacht. I then noticed a bizarre coincidence - the pop up ad from Amazon was recommending the very same vinyl edition of the Neil Young album I’d looked at, but not bought, last night. Obviously this was no co-incidence – a minority vinyl edition from a minority musician that happened to be the last thing I looked at around 11pm on my iPad in the comfort of my home was now being promoted to me on a website I only visit in the office.

 

Clearly the Amazon cookies were busy through the night linking themselves not just to my private home computer but also to my office account… from where I order most Amazon things.

 

Dead Clever? Yes.

 

Customer centric? Maybe.

 

Smart business? No.

 

I don’t think I want to do business anymore with a retailer who is digitally stalking me. Without being over dramatic it feels like an invasion of privacy. When I buy a CD from the excellent bricks and mortar retailer Fopp I don’t come home to find an assistant hanging around outside my house with an armful of CD’s I might like. Just because digital technology enables Amazon to do the equivalent cheaply doesn’t mean it should do it.

 

We’ve talked often in these pages about the importance of managing every aspect of brand behaviour to match a company’s vision and values.

 

Amazon states: ‘Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company’. Making sure I’m only ever a click away from buying from Amazon may make good business sense but I’m not sure if it’s what we want.

 

When Jeff Bezos created Amazon, he said ‘If you make customers unhappy on the internet they can tell 6,000 friends’. I think they may be doing just the sort of thing that turns Brand Champions into Brand Terrorists. JS