8/01/2011

ACME Supermarkets: Better Never than Late

In August, 2010, a woman provided her email address at an ACME supermarket in Delaware when signing up for an ACME SuperCard®. Six months later, she moved to another state. Five months after that, she received the email below. It took nearly a year for ACME to welcome her to their email program, by which time she lived in a location over a thousand miles from the nearest store.  This is a Fail for poor list management.

Last year, I wrote about a Safeway loyalty program where there was a long delay processing loyalty program enrollment. It’s as if the retailers don’t see enough value in customer data to use it on a timely basis. That is quite a contrast to higher-cost, lower purchase frequency programs like Alamo that recognize a new customer within days.

Lesson: If customers are willing to share personal information with you, don’t let it get stale. Recognize the customer within two weeks if communicating by mail, or within a few days if communicating online.