Do you feel any happier when your bank or insurance company sends you an email/postal mail wishing you on your birthday/anniversary? I don’t think most people do. When the greetings are generated through an automated system and there is no human being who even knows you involved in the whole process, the greeting loses its essence and meaning. 

Last year, I received a couple of such greetings on my birthday. This year I got more than 10 such emails (I didn’t even open half of them) creating a clutter in my mailbox. If businesses keep getting more aggressive in ‘managing’ their customer relationships this way, next year could be worse. 

Should companies be sending such emails out? There are businesses like restaurants, for which sending such mails makes sense – you are reminding someone of your existence at a time when he/she is very likely to be planning on dining out. Messages like – “Your wedding anniversary is approaching. Have you bought your wife a nice gift? If not, why don’t you check out our collection of blah..blah” – might generate some sales for businesses like an apparel or a jewelry store. But, I really don’t understand the impact of such emails when they come from a credit card company, a bank, an insurance company, a mutual fund house or a phone company.

Impersonal and automated greetings need a rethink!