I am tall enough to have difficulty finding the right size clothes. With the success from this year’s weight training I now have to update my wardrobe and that led to a long search for a shop that will supply me with what I need.
I found such a place and have been there a couple of times, even got talked into signing up for their loyalty card. I have a knee jerk reaction to these cards because it seems I’m giving away too much information about myself for too little in return. I took it thinking that I will be back often enough for it to make financial sense.
Recently I got a ‘Welcome to our loyalty scheme’ letter sent to my address. I’ve paid for my purchases with my bank card and I wrote my details for the loyalty scheme in capitals to avoid any errors but yet still I am addressed as Ms Jean Pollonals. How did it ever get to this?
When a new way of using information is started in a company, data integrity must be designed into the process for relaying information from one point to another. We see in this case the shop had two accurate records of my information and yet the marketing department got a corrupted version.
It seems simple to accept the customer’s card payment, give notice that the information will be used for marketing and always refer to that single source. The consequences for this inaccurate information are endless. The Data Protection Act can be called into question here but my take on this is that it’s my responsibility to inform them of the mistake.
I would not like to put a store clerk on the spot having to decide if Mr Sean Pollonais should get the Loyalty Scheme benefits accrued by Ms Jean Pollonals. If that turns out to be a ‘No’, the shop will lose a customer for what was an avoidable reason.
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