Payless ShoeSource makes me feel like a (phone) number

Dear Payless ShoeSource,

I didn't expect you to call me last week. We just don't have that kind of relationship. So imagine my surprise when I checked my voicemail and there you were, eagerly confusing, annoying, and alienating me with your announcement of a "bogo" sale.

First, let me be honest with you. I'm a little embarrassed to be writing you this open letter. I don't exactly get pride in announcing to everyone on the Internet that I shop for shoes at your store. In fact, I feel compelled to explain straightaway that I don't buy shoes for myself there. I only buy shoes for my kids because they outgrow them in days, if not hours. And in fact, I go to your store only after I've exhausted my other options.

I hope you don't take that the wrong way. I'm not trying to put you down. After all, I'm a customer. I just want you to know that I'm not a loyal customer. I know there are Payless diehards out there, but I would hazard a guess that many more of your customers (me included) are actually cheap chic freaks. It's a subtle distinction, but one that recognizes that there's nothing sacred in our relationship. In other words, you don't have anything I can't get from Target, among other companies that promise I'll "pay less."

Customer relationships can be tenuous and fragile, like Humpty Dumpty. Perhaps you know that. Maybe that's why you called me like a desperate boyfriend. But robocalling me and using industry acronyms I don't recognize are hardly the ways to nurture a relationship and transform casual customers into loyal advocates, or at least repeat customers.

Instead, here's what robocalling me did for me: it made me see you less like Target (which I *heart*) and more like those dirty telemarketers and pollsters that I loathe. Your associative set just got a lot uglier.

At a time when human touches are vital ways companies can differentiate themselves in a competitive market during an economic recession, you became a lot less human and a lot more desperate in my eyes, which isn't a good look.

These days I'm watching my dollars. I'm thinking twice before I spend them, and these thoughtless encounters are making me think twice about you. I doubt I'm alone. For every robocall you make, you risk sacrificing tomorrow's customers for a buck today. The gains, if any, are short-lived and hardly inline with the zeitgeist of the moment.

-joanie