Ok, so here’s what happened. A few days ago I stopped by the Rag + Bone store. Whilst there I tried on about five items and bought one. Claudine (name changed), the sales assistant, was friendly and helpful. Absolutely nothing about her approach or our interaction was out of the ordinary. At the till, she asked for my email address and - assuming I would be subscribed to the R+B newsletter - I gave it to her. Happy days.
Yesterday I got an email from Claudine. This is what it said,
Hi Camilla, I hope you had a lovely Christmas, I remember you bought the skirt, I was just wondering if you had a chance to wear it already? Have you got any plan for New year? If you need anything else, let me know, I'll be happy to serve you again. If I don't see you before, Happy New Year. xx
Now... is that weird? I really can’t decide. In my previous post I was strongly lamenting the lack of a tailored, personal, engaged conversation with a brand. Yet now I’ve been invited into one I feel a bit... off about it. Is this how Rag + Bone care for their customers? In which case, that’s a lot of effort for someone who bought a single sale item. Or has our Claudine accessed my personal details in order to make friends or even hit on me? I can’t work it out.
Either way, it comes across as customer service design and brand guidelines gone awry - like a collquialism put through Google Translate. Rag + Bone, if you’re reading, you might want to get a handle on this so I, and perhaps others, can enjoy their new clothes without the shadow of poor grammar and strange undertones. Meantime, I think I'll stick to sale shopping online!
