The Wrong Time to Cross-Sell

The other day, I had the unfortunate experience of recovering from a stolen wallet. In doing so, I had to call a bunch of credit card companies to report the stolen cards and order replacements. This gave me the chance to compare and contrast the ways various banks handled this too-common situation.

After varying degrees of automated voice recognition menus, all of the banks eventually connected me with a real person.

One bank, however, earned my strong subscription disdain. After I carefully selected the "Report a Stolen Card" voice option, the company first tried to cross-sell me on an unrelated loan program for veterans.

Really?

Let's put aside for a moment the fact that I'm not a veteran. The bank didn't know that.

But it did know that my card had been stolen - because I'd just told them!

It doesn't take a psychic to figure out that a customer in this situation probably isn't receptive to a cross-sell pitch.

Don't try to cross-sell an upset, stressed-out, or angry subscriber. Just solve their problem as quickly as possible. That's how you earn trust.

(Find my Subscription Marketing Manifesto here.)