For the past several months we've had a regular Saturday feature called "Examples of Excellence" with photos and other inspiring examples. I'm changing it a bit to "Examples of…" as there are lessons to be learned from the other side of the coin. Plus in some cases in might be more fun to poke at examples of the pathetic.
Every few weeks I get a piece of spam from a firm called Integrity Solutions. Yes, I'm openly outing them. The first paragraph is always the same:
What does this company do?
Integrity Solutions is a performance improvement company that focuses on enhancing the effectiveness of sales and service teams to achieve measurable business results such as increased sales, member loyalty, and talent retention.
But I have a couple issues. First, they resort to spam as part of their own presumably "integrity-centered" sales and marketing efforts. I don't know about you, but that's not the image I want for my own company.
Second, the grammar in the email is rather poor… "open up the lines communications…" ok…
Third, and more importantly: no phone number is given. If I reply to the email it goes to their spam sending system. A marketing campaign without a phone number. Who would have thunk it?
Initial impressions, even in spam, go a long ways.