{"id":111541,"date":"2014-08-05T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richardrshapiro.com\/2014\/08\/05\/gimmick-heartfelt-td-bank-thank-campaign\/"},"modified":"2014-09-07T22:51:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T05:51:21","slug":"gimmick-or-heartfelt-td-bank-thank-you-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/gimmick-or-heartfelt-td-bank-thank-you-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Gimmick or Heartfelt? TD Bank \u201cThank You\u201d Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week with over six million views on YouTube, TD Bank of Canada received tremendous press on their new customer experience campaign. They handed out more than 20,000 envelopes each containing $20 to customers, deposited surprise funds to on-line accounts and donated heartfelt gifts to people who are going through difficult times. The video<\/a> can bring tears to even the most stoic.<\/p>\n

I am a tremendous advocate of saying thank-you, not only to customers, but to employees too. I think, however, that appreciation doesn\u2019t need to be a monetary reward or gift. In some instances, it is almost an insult when a company offers compensation for your loyalty or a dollar for providing feedback on a survey.\u00a0 Your opinion is worth more than that.<\/p>\n

For the most part, appreciation is more meaningful when it is between a specific associate at a company and the customer.\u00a0 This happens over time.\u00a0 In the promo video TD produced, some of the gifts were tailored to the customer\u2019s individual circumstances. TD Bank deserves credit for the associates developing a relationship with the customers and knowing what their problems were.<\/p>\n

However, the campaign seems to be a gimmick drummed up by a marketing team.\u00a0 Video shots and background music get emotions in high gear complete with a beautiful flower bouquet, Disneyland tickets, and checks for $1000 all coming out of the ATM with the press of a button.\u00a0 Every news channel carried the story the day TD Bank released it. \u00a0The real test of TD\u2019s commitment to thanking their customers and extending customer appreciation as part of their goal to improve the customer experience, can only be evaluated over time.<\/p>\n

Recently, I had my newspaper rerouted during a two-week summer vacation with our family. \u00a0When I received the last paper the day we left, there was a yellow sticky attached. \u201cThank you so much and I hope your family enjoys the rest of their summer,\u201d signed, Sandra. \u00a0That was totally unexpected, felt sincere, and put a smile on my face.\u00a0 I\u2019m confident she didn\u2019t need a company-wide program to know the impact of a genuine thank you.<\/p>\n

There were many positive comments by the public commending TD Bank. I may be a bit of cynic about their idea for customer appreciation; what do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week with over six million views on YouTube, TD Bank of Canada received tremendous press on their new customer experience campaign. They handed out more than 20,000 envelopes each containing $20 to customers, deposited surprise funds to on-line accounts and donated heartfelt gifts to people who are going through difficult times. The video can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7496,"featured_media":92346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,84,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}