CRM - Crap Removed from Mailbox

CRM used to stand for Customer Relationship Management - the philosophy, practice and industry around managing the managing a customer - from pre-sales and acquisition, through customer orders, returns and inquiries, up selling and finally through the departure of that customer for whatever reason (after of course attempting to win the customer back if possible).

I'm not opposed to getting junk mail - I actually like it. There are literally only about 2 non-holiday days a year that I don't get something in the mailbox. I do my duty and recycle the mail at my kid's school so that they get a few cents a pound toward the budget. I like seeing interesting stuff in the mail. But... What I don't like is when I get credit card offers from companies I already have a credit card from. And even worse, when they send the offer not as an up sell to a more premium credit card, or one with a different reward structure, but when they send it to me like I'm an average Joe off the street that they don't already have a relationship with. I've been a customer of theirs for years and they still don't know me? They could tell what I had for breakfast the other day if asked, but yet when it comes time to cast a wide net for new suckers, er um, customers, they can't even scrub my name off their list 'cuz they already caught me?!

I know that the credit card companies make billions of dollars a year and the purchases I make and fees that I pay contribute to that, so I'm not out to try to save them money. I'm not living in a fantasy world that thinks that they're gonna lower my credit card fees or give me something back because they're saving money on their mass mailings. But even stepping into their shoes for a second - you'd think that they would want to save some money -- money that would go straight to the bottom line.

I know that they buy lists from a variety of sources. Lists of people that might want another credit card. Lists of people that want to transfer balances over for a low introductory rate. And those individual companies may not know that they each have my name listed, but certainly the big guys could scrub the list before sending to the bulk-mailer. They know more about me than I do (ignoring that fact most of the time is necessary to allow me to sleep at night).

It's just a little pet peeve of mine, but hey! AOL doesn't send CDs in the mail anymore. They're still hope for this cause too... :-}