The CIA man wanted to take my picture, and his girlfriend thought I would be overjoyed at the prospect. No wonder marketers get a bad reputation.
Let me back up a bit. This past week I spoke with a young woman who, along with her boyfriend, is planning on opening an elegant French restaurant in New Paltz, NY later this summer. She’s had four years of on-the-job training in restaurant management. Her boyfriend is a graduate of the CIA – the Culinary Institute of America, a topnotch cooking school.
The young woman – I’ll call her Rachel, because that was the name on her tag – enthusiastically described her plan to snap a digital photo of patrons as they entered the restaurant. The photos would then be printed right onto the dinner checks, as well as stored in a customer data file. According to Rachel, this would prevent restaurant checks from being given to the wrong parties, and would allow staff to identify best customers on sight.
Leave aside whether checks get switched often enough in high-end restaurants for this to be a legitimate reason to implement such a system. What is the impact of snapping a photograph of every patron who walks across the establishment’s threshold going to have to her business – and what impact will it have on consumers when they are told it is being done under the heading of CRM?
There was nothing evil or malicious about Rachel. She was – well, if not young, then certainly younger than me, with the enthusiasm that comes with youth. I’d put her in her early 20s, based on her looks and conversational hints. And she was certainly affable enough, and would probably provide a welcoming presence at a host stand.
Yet the very customer relationship idea she was so excited about is one that will alienate her customers, and probably kill her business, to say nothing of giving consumers one more example of business’s intrusion into their lives. I know I’d have a pretty hard struggle between my love of food and my aversion to having my picture taken.
Bad apples within direct marketing have brought legislative opposition as well as consumer pushback to the entire industry. True, responsible marketers concerned about privacy and customer experience can probably avoid most pitfalls. But the small businesses that pursue bad CRM while acting on the best of intentions can unknowingly do as much damage to marketing’s reputation as scam artists and organizations that misuse data.
I hope Rachel’s restaurant gets off to a fine start. And I also hope that she abandons this idea of photographic every customer. I’d really like to visit her place when it opens, and it’s awfully hard to enjoy coq au vin (that’s French for “freedom chicken”) with a paper bag over one’s head.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com
