Posted By The Email Wars

Why would you want to build a contact management preference center for your website? You already have lead capture in place. You are getting 2-5 data points besides email address for every prospect. For your newsletter opt-in forms, you are getting the necessary subscriber email address. This is all good right? You have what you need to start communicating with people, according to your marketing plan. When someone above you says drop another email on the list and drive some sales, you are all ready to lock and load. Your messages simply drop the payload on everyone on your list in hopes that a good percentage of them are interested in something you have to say or sell. “Spray and Pray.” Perfect plan, right?… you have done your job.

Or have you?

If you are the one in charge of email marketing efforts for your company and this is how you approach email marketing, then maybe it is time you start thinking about how you are going to start getting tactical for the holiday season and beyond.

Why a preference center?

Besides simply their email address that you already have in your database, what information would be more important for you to know about someone in order to have a relevant discussion?

In B to B

Current need, current provider, business challenge, stage in evaluation to make a change, location, and job title are just a few that instantly come to mind. These help the marketing team enable the sales team with relevant communications, by aligning messaging and strategy. With this alignment, organizations can reach out with a series of emails in a prospect to lead to customer lifecycle. This helps to prioritize and move the ball forward. Look at this as a team approach. When it comes to business growth and you need to huddle up and act like a team.

In B to C

Gender, location, size (retail), product interest and frequency of desired email communication are some of the main data, but what is relevant to capture is entirely dependent on your specific industry.

There are many ways to “ask” for this information, if you can put it together in a way that is valuable to someone completing it. You can use smart campaign ideas to get relevant click data in order to build a profile. Think about a clothing retailer and the use of simple things like men/women or S/M/L/XL as actionable data that you can append to a profile. When it comes to the consumer, don’t always expect that click data gives you the full picture. A subscriber could be in market to purchase a gift or product for someone else, thus skewing your data. So find ways to ask or build a profile from data over time. I have two retailers that continue, after six years, to send me product offers for women even after I’ve changed my gender in their preference center, which is slightly frustrating. Your typical customer would simply unsubscribe over time if they got these offers.

What is the goal that you wish to achieve from an email preference center?

There is always a “what’s in it for you.” What are those things that, if you had them, would make your email programs better? If you had X, Y or Z facts, could you be more strategic and deliver better offers, emails and campaigns that truly lift your sales/goals? You need to start with defining these goals according to data and start from there.

Is this helpful to you, or to your subscribers?

Are you out to help people? What I mean is, are you taking the time to look at your email marketing efforts from the other side of the inbox to see what changes would actually make a positive impact on the relationship from the subscriber perspective. Looking at your campaigns from the other side can give you a way to work backwards and realize why someone actually subscribed to your emails, thus giving your efforts a boost of insight. Why have they subscribed in the first place? Is it information? Learning? To save money? To be closer to you as a brand?

Is there a middle ground?

Of course there is. There is no way that you can only think of it one way. Email is relationship marketing. If you want a good relationship you need to be giving, listening, and working on it each and every day. It is not something that you can go about as just having something to sell. Taking this approach might work some of the time, but after a while that success will dry up. You will either start to hemorrhage subscribers, losing interest (thus clicks and conversions), and be forced to radically change your approach. Or you could simply be constantly fighting for more new subscribers to offset the loss.

Email preference centers are usually an easy thing to implement but many people we talk to see it as a challenge from a technological point with getting data in sync. Well even if you can only store these records in your email platform or CRM that is a good start. Look to where you can best use it and feed the data in that direction. You can always look at integration with other systems later, but you need to start somewhere.

One of the easiest places to start is at the opt-in. Sure you only grab an email address now, but what are you sending them to on the thank you page? Is there an opportunity for you to use progressive profiling at that point to ask 2-3 more questions? If so, do it and tie a win to them for completion. Convey the benefit to them so they will gladly give you the information to use. Or you can do so with a welcome email triggered by sign up. It should be instant and not delayed a few days (or weeks as I have witnessed at times). They are engaged with you and just gave you some information. Why not ask for it then? Sure, a certain percentage of them will not complete it, but many will if you present it with reasons to share it with you. Simply asking for it is not the best approach as we are all wary of why we need to surrender or share more data. Tell them that by doing so they will get more relevant emails, will get earlier access to sales, studies, or other offers that others do not. But if you tell them this you will need to deliver on it.

In closing, it is now time for every email marketer to have a preference center to begin the move to valuable email engagement. Or you can simply sit back and do what you have been doing all along, helping contribute to all of those that like to write articles about the death of email. It is in your hands.

Posted by Dylan Boyd at 6:04 AM

Published in Best Of Email, Best Practices, E-Mail Marketing, Email News, Lead Capture, eMail Marketing Optimization on Monday, October 26th, 2009

Diciamo la verità, questo web 2.0 è anche uno specchio del nostro “farci notare”. Inutile negarlo.

In fondo, pubblichi uno status su Facebook perchè vuoi che i tuoi amici commentino ciò che hai scritto, se riporti una notizia su Twitter, non ti dispiace se qualcuno ti retwitta , apri un thread su FriendFeed con l’idea che possa nascere una interessante discussione (grazie alle opinioni degli altri utenti).

Più utenti ti “seguono” sui Social Network, maggiore sarà la possibilità che il tuo pensiero conquisti una buona visibilità / viralità.  E’ necessario, quindi, “fidelizzare” anche i componenti del proprio network per evitare che abbandonino i nostri feed? Sul come farlo ne proverò a parlare in una delle prossime puntate: ma è ovviamente quasi ed esclusivamente una questione di qualità dei contenuti.

Un thread su Friendfeed di oggi, lanciato da Foxarts, attiva invece una discussione molto interessante sulla reazione degli utenti iscritti ad un Social Network, nel momento in cui scoprono che un loro subcriber (o friend, chiamatelo come volete) decide di cancellare la sottoscrizione ai propri feed.
Come si comportano davanti a questa eventualità? Fanno finta di nulla? Ricambiano il “favore”? Cercano di riconquistare l’utente? O nemmeno si pongono il problema?

C’è chi dice che l’utilizzo di sistemi che notifichino (vedi FFspy per Friendfeed) gli utenti che decidono di non “seguirci” più, sono solamente un modo per dimostrare al mondo che la nostra presenza sui Social Network è appesa alla voglia di “web-notorietà”.
C’è chi sostiene che questi strumenti sono comunque importanti per capire i flussi di ingresso ed uscita dal proprio feed, capire se le argomentazioni che ogni giorno propiniamo sono davvero interessanti.
C’è chi non si cura di questo aspetto, perchè se segue un utente, lo fa semplicemente perchè gli interessa ciò che scrive. Se poi sarà lui stesso a decidere di non seguirci più, non cambia nulla.
C’è chi parla di qualità e non di quantità, c’è chi non aspetta altro per ricambiare il favore.

Insomma, in piena democrazia social-networkiana, ce n’è per tutti i gusti. Ah si, volete sapere come la penso io. Non ricambio il favore per il gusto di farlo, però la curiosità di sapere chi ha deciso di non seguire più i miei feed c’è. Anche per oggi, ecco il mio pezzo di sincerità.

Divertitevi qui.

It is Friday and that means time for the weekly can-o-spam to be opened. I hope you’re hungry because this one is filling!

How’s this for a priceless unsubscribe line:

It’s so easy, you press here and everything will clear. Your email address will be no more and you’ll never again hear from our store. Visit the page and opt-out from the list we promise there is no twist. It’ll be your loss when you do because then you’ll never have a clue, but it’s ok if you do, we understand, we’re not blue! Rejoin again at any time and everything thing then will be fine.

Google is really making things easier isn’t it? Gmail Makes it Easy to Unsubscribe From Spammy Mailing Lists

Recently, I requested to be removed from a charity’s mailing list and was sworn at and abused… I feel at this point that it may not be a good idea to name and shame them, as it may cause more harassment and bad mouthing towards my organisation from them. I will detail what happened below and let me know, what would you do in this situation?

So last night, I received a Tsunami appeal from a small, relatively unknown organisation, wanting me to put funds into their bank account for the Tsunami appeal. As I receive a HUGE amount of email through all DonateNZ email addresses, I prefer to keep my personal address limited to personal mail only. I also follow this particular organisation on Twitter and receive their mail that way, therefore I asked to be removed from the email list.

This morning I received a call from a Trustee of the organisation, who within a second of me saying hello began to yell at me for my response, completely letting loose and swearing at me, calling me a communist and a horrible “f***ng” person for not supporting Samoa, in addition to a tirade of other of profanities. I was completely taken aback and completely surprised by her reaction. She continued to yell for about 2 minutes without letting me speak, until she hung up on me. I was absolutely flabbergasted and a second later, very upset. I mean, I work all day every day working to promote good causes and help out wherever I can, you just don’t expect to be treated like that ever, nonetheless for asking to be unsubscribed from a mailing list. About 5 minutes later, she rang back to the office and I was too upset pick up the phone, so Jane, our Trustee did. She proceeded to start abusing and swearing at Jane also and then hung up on her also.

Following on from the phone call, she emailed my email address another 9 times with various insults and accusations, as well as posting on Twitter warning people against our organisation, as well as sending an email warning her board members about us. There was no reasoning with her, it just became a complete personal attack. She has been warned that if public defamatory continue I will take both public and legal action, but I hope it does not come to this. I am shocked and appauled that a simple unsubscribe request would evoke such a reaction from someone, it’s just completely flabbergasted me.

This is a pretty out-there example of fail charity customer service and human behavior. It is sad really, as she has now not only lost her organisation my support personally but also DonateNZ’s as well. Thankfully, the emails seem to have ceased now, so I hope this is the last I hear from that particular organisation.

Have you ever had an incident like this when you tried to unsubscribe from an mail list? What would you do if they started slagging your business or organisation publicly when you did?

Kudos to Fairfax for emailing me just now regarding my post late last night about the spammy bots of Fairfax.

Here’s their response:

fairfax response

What’s good about their response?

It took them less than 24 hours and in their email (above – click to enlarge) they resolve to fix it through investigating and unsubscribing me. I still feel it is an issue not being able to unsubscribe from their email form, but kudos to Blair at Fairfax for responding and checking my details. This is one email from Fairfax I was happy to receive.

You have a company and you send newsletters to your customers, subsribers, whatever? I offer you easy way how to turn them into spam! Oh… you don’t want that!

It has been some time I’ve heard about Acclaim and their free-to-play MMORPG 9Dragons. I tried it, I didn’t like it so much so I quite playing the game. Long time before PWI – more than a year, maybe even two. I never received any emails from them – except maybe some registration that is deleted already – as I clean up my mails here and there.

I don’t mind, I was surprised (“what the hell is that?”) but then I recalled about the game and I consider it OK. I scrolled down… “unsubscribe, unsubs… there is no unsubscribe!” I don’t know what happens if you report the mail as a spam and you’re alone – it’s probably no big deal. I don’t know what happens when many people on Gmail do that. I guess that at least on Gmail future recipients wouldn’t see that mail in their Inboxes at all. Is that what you want?

I deleted it for now, next time forgotten service with their newsletter without unsubscribe option goes to Spam.

BTW: Please… don’t make me login (like some other service wanted me to) just to confirm that process. It means I have to request forgotten password first!

If you are an aspirant of higher studies, and use the internet for searching info on colleges, courses, & places to study, beware of giving your precious e-mail address while registering.

Once you are registered, you get a hell lot of spam in your inbox, from colleges all over the world. The site claims to be of “high standards”. The site is not much help for your needs, and they will become a pain in the a** with all these spams.

Those education experts do not provide an unsubscribe button, or a link to manage our account so that we can delete it, if we want to. There a lot of better websites out there for your needs. So, do not give your regular e-mail address to such spammers.

“Sorry to see you go.
Thank you for your loyalty and staying with us. We are sorry to see you go and hope you might come back some time soon.
To help us improve our service please let us know if you have any comments as we’d love to hear them. Once again thank you!”

Presenting a simple message to a leaver is such a simple thing to do and yet so many email marketers fail to follow some basic ‘rules’. When a subscriber leaves (unsubscribes) from your mailing list be human and thank them for their support. Then ask them if there was something that contributed to them leaving? I often suggest including a simple leaving poll/survey which only takes the ex-subscriber a second to complete. You could include:

1. too many emails
2. email information no longer relevant
3. just because.

With feedback you’re able to gain a better understanding why subscribers leave your service.

After I unsubscribed (because I found the email content no longer useful) I noticed a couple of elements that’s worth mentioning, there’s:

• a clearly marked unsubscribe call-to-action in the footer of the email,
• a one click to unsubscribe action including my email address and a clearly labeled ‘Unsubscribe‘ button close to it,
• a ‘Sorry to see you leave‘ reflector message after I clicked the button, and
• I received a follow up/confirm email immediately after, which importantly includes a ‘Sorry for leaving‘ messaged as well as a mechanism to re-subscribe again at some point should I wish to.

A clear example of best practice at the un-subscription process in email marketing.

Why do some companies continue to make it difficult for consumers to unsubscribe from email newsletters?

Yes, they do it so you give up and decide not to unsubscribe.  That’s how they keep you in their marketing web with the hope that you’ll continue to buy.

Or, their customer service and user experience are so bad that they don’t even realize the sorry state of their email unsubscribe process.

Or, maybe they figure that consumers who want to unsubscribe don’t deserve an easy way to do it.  Kind of a final “thanks for nothing and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

No matter the reason, it’s bad marketing.

Consumers who unsubscribe from email newsletters aren’t necessarily severing their relationship with the brand.  They’ll likely buy again.

They’re unsubscribing because the content of the emails don’t provide any value.  Or, they’re getting too many emails–the frequency is too much for them.

Some companies require the consumer to enter their email address on an unsubscribe form.  If you have multiple email addresses, then it can be a bit tricky to figure out which one is the right one.

Other companies require the consumer to enter a user name and password on an unsubscribe form.  With all the user names and passwords people need to remember, that’s called torture.

I’ve even seen a double opt-out unsubscribe processes.  Are you really sure you want to miss out on all these great emails? Really really?

If your company doesn’t have a 1-click unsubscribe process, then you’re making it too tough for consumers.

One of the things I notice about email list management is that people leave mixed messages.  I don’t know if this has happened to you, but you find a few people visit the unsubscribe page, and never complete the action.  Is the page confusing, or did they get sidetracked.  Another common one is to get a heated message from someone looking to unsubscribe.  The problem is when you check the database for the email address there is no such record.  So there is no easy way to remedy the problem.  Typically we try to approach them by asking for old email addresses.  Raise your hand if you have an old address that forwards to your current one?

That usually solved the problem, if they remember, because at some point their domain name or address format changed, and of course the email senders have an old version, and are unable to locate the record with the reply-to address.

So the message here?  Don’t think that the senders of your email newsletter (white paper promotion, etc) are actually trying to continue mailing you when you are no longer interested in the content.  It might be as simple as a period or a hyphen in your email address.

What have you noticed about email subscriber management?  Interested in more on email, check out a few other posts on email communications.

Like Rowan, I’ve been unsubscribing from a lot of list emails recently. Let’s see what we can learn from the process.

The Good

The best email subscriptions are easy to unsubscribe from – requiring a simple click from inside the email, which bounces to a web page with a confirmation message.

This is exemplary – at the bottom of each WSJ news alerts message is a one click “stop this now” link. (There is also another link where you can go to the website and manage all of your emails)

Next best is a return email to unsubscribe – something like this from the OECD.

Less good but still ok-ish are email lists that give you a unsubscribe link, direct you to a page and make you hit a confirm button on that page, sometimes answering a question while you are there. This is painful, but I guess you can spend a few more seconds to help them understand why you are leaving, and you don’t have to remember a login or password.

I had to laugh at this “why did you unsubscribe” pick-list from a sporadic email list that I signed up for some client research.
This drop down list actually made me feel a lot better about the particular organisation, even though I never read their spam. I’m guessing that the information they gather isn’t really  that valuable, but it is clear that the list owners understand the state of mind of people that have resorted to unsubscribing.

This is an important lesson - by the time you want to unsubscribe you are annoyed with the cumulative impact of all the messages, and therefore you don’t really like the senders. You are not happy, and want out.

It also means that email senders don’t want the customers anymore either. The recipients  are not reading, and if they are reading then they are not enjoying – so advertisers will get negative vibes.

Therefore it is important to do three things as an email sender:

1. Make it really easy to unsubscribe, so messages will never annoy customers again
2. Try, even, to make customers enjoy the process – so the last taste is a good one, and they will consider signing up again later or for something else now.
3. Ask for feedback – so you learn and customers feel they have their say. Do make it optional though.

The Bad

The bad unsubscribe links aren’t what they advertise – they send you to the website, make you do something and then send a (one or more) “are you sure?” email, which is doubly annoying as you’ve just told them never to send me messages again.

The worst offenders are links that direct you back to the originating go to their site, require you login and then ‘manage your email options’.

This is simply unacceptable today. I’ll often be on a computer (e.g. the iPhone) where I don’t have my password for that site stored, or maybe I’m simply too lazy to go through the process so I won’t unsubscribe.

While some ‘email marketers’ may want to keep expanding their email lists, I say “NO – you do not want me on your list”, and here’s why:

1. The cumulative annoyance directed at your company will continue to build up until I am mad when ever I see your contemptable unstoppable spam
2. I will desperately try to consign your crap to oblivion in my junk mailbox, and thereby never see any of your messages again. Your email list is vapour.
3. I’ll get really mad and tell people about it, and maybe even blog about it…

So let’s name and shame, and I’ll direct this to a company that actually does know better: Trade Me, and specifically OldFriends.

The Old Friends emails have been getting spammier* and spammier, and I am getting really annoyed*, angry even at the spambot* that keeps sending them* – so I want to remove them.

*refer to above three points for linguistic context

However to remove myself from the OldFriends spambot requires a login:

OldFriends is not a site made for constant hanging out – so chances are that the login screen will draw a blank when it comes time to remember your details:

Of course we know the email address – it was just spammed – and so we can ask for yet another email to send you your password. Umm – no thanks – that is going to take too long.  (and I won’t mention the giant page-long “do you know these people” brick wall after you log in)

It’s the same with FindSomeone**

so I’ll keep getting spam from Findsomeone as well.

**(are you single, cute, smart, ridiculously weathly and have low standards? – get in touch

Trade Me can do it right though, as you’d expect.

Here’s how easy it is to unsubscribe from Mod’s Motors. First – click on the unsubscribe link in the email:

and that’s it – done.

Trade Me also make it trivial to sign up again for the email – which I quickly did.***

***I hope I never have to do this for real – Mod is leaving Trade Me but I trust that the appeal of 250,000 righteous readers will keep his classic quotes coming:

The thrill of fettling a neglected beast and turning it into a minter is special. Some people try to do this with the opposite sex and get disappointed when they fail.

Summary

So what have we learned?

1. Make it easy to unsubscribe
2. Make it easy to subscribe
3. Make it fun

To me the best unsubscribe approach is:

• a link that unsubscribes me instantly
• lands me on a professional, branded and fun page
• that thanks me, tells me I’m now unsubscribed and offers me an optional one to three question survey to fill out.

Which is just common sense.

Hello, good afternoon!

Some of you may, or may not know that each month we send out a mailer to all our lovely clients to tell them about our Artist of the Month.  Making the mailout and hearing the lovely responses is by far the best part… unfortunately, like any mailout, we have to (well, actually our admin monkey Michaela has to do it!) trawl through all the bounce backs, out of offices and unsubscribes.  BORING!! – or is it?

Lately, we’ve been seeing some really hilarious automatic responses which we’d like to share with you – because if they made us laugh out loud, we’re certain they’ll make you too!!

I will be out of the office starting 03/03/2009 and will not return until 30/03/2009.

Sorry, but I am away from the office. If you have a special deal on Viagra could you please send an email to the Florida retirement home: http://www.floridaondisplay.com/ If you are sending me a virus under the title “yourbankdetails.doc” I appreciate the offer and its really clever but maybe you should spend less time in an internet café on the Tijuna boarder. If you are a “barrister” who has come across some funds in Africa and need my credit details then I will provide them to you if you can tell me a word that rhymes with Orange and send me a 19 page document as to how you chose the burgundy wood to frame your ‘degree’ in gullibility and what material your ‘real’ Gucci suit is made of. For all other details please contact the front desk using the code word “Hello” on 0207 4949120 or email Wing Wing (her AC/DC track is mind blowing) who was recommended to me by the great Shui Kay Kan: http://www.wingmusic.co.nz

And most recently:

I will be out of the office starting 10/04/2009 and will not return until 23/04/2009.

I’m on holiday in Dubai. Please don’t burgle my house when I’m away. I’ve just had new windows fitted, which has left me quite out of pocket & I’m quite attached to the meagre possessions I own. If you really feel the urge to do some pillaging in the NW10 area, next-door-but-one own a bigger flat screen telly and judging by the size of their 5 Series BMW, they can afford to replace it. Come to think of it, their cat makes a terrible mess of my garden, so you’d be doing me a big favour if you stole it while you’re there. I believe it answers to the name “Satan”.

Now that my neighbour’s greater suitability for a profitable spot of pilfering has been established, if your enquiry is related to something other than larceny, please contact _ until I return. Thank you.

The above were provided by our friends Matthew Keon at Fallon and Richard McGrann at BBH.  So, thank you both very much!!!

We’d love to read more, so if anyone has some more examples – post them on the blog!!!

I just read a great blog post by Michell Tripp.  She announced that she was offended that Guy Kawasaki revealed he had ghost twitterers and unfollowed him comparing him with Milli Vanilli.  But along with her thinking declaring herself a heretic as original being quite boring, I think she is missing a significant point.

The entire trend of the web and technology as a whole is democratization.  By democratization, I mean individuals taking control of technology personally.

After democratization there is the commons that Howard Rheingold talks about: Cooperation.  Individuals opening up to each other and sharing themselves.

However, what Guy is doing is not at all bad.  He is going one step further.  He is turning his cooperative persona into a business.  He has done the personal computation thing. He has done the personal cooperation thing.  Now, he is doing the personal corporation thing.

So, you may have unsubscribed to a corporation, seeking cooperation.  But Michelle’s comparison to Milli Vanilli is off.

Milli Vanilli started off as a corporation posing as personalization.  The incongruity offended everyone.

So, maybe in a sense it is Michelle.  Maybe she is just behind the curve a little.  She does not see the reversal of the phenomena that Marshall McLuhan talked about regarding media.

Personal computation; Personal cooperation; Personal corporation.  What’s next in line?

I read an interesting statistic the other day from eROI that said more than 18% of email campaigns are still not tracked. In other words, some marketers and business owners are still just creating e-newsletters and blasts for the heck of it (probably because they think they have to do them but still don’t understand the value involved) and then pushing “send”. The ironic part is the e-mail marketing, especially in this recession is one of the most effective, low-cost ways to get your message, programs, and products to your customers, and it is easily trackable! So, why are people still not tracking their results? Don’t they want to know how many people are opening their emails and who they are (the open rate)? Isn’t it important to know the unsubscribe, clickthrough, and bounce rates?

Some email marketers simply don’t understand how to do it, while others think that it’s costly and too time consuming. At a time when ROI on every piece of marketing that you create is so important, are you tracking your results? The scary part is untracked emails can lead to your customers simply ignoring them because you’re not offering the information and services relevant to their current needs. Worse, you might end up blacklisted, which will sadly solve your tracking problems – you won’t need to track because you won’t be allowed to send emails! Take a few minutes and incorporate segmentation and personalization into your email marketing campaigns and learn what type of results your efforts are really producing.

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The spam that I hate the most isn’t in my inbox or Facebook or LinkedIn. It’s in my physical mailbox. 

Why is it that I can easily unsubscribe from email blasts, but I can’t easily opt out of catalogues, credit card offers or broadband bundle offers sent by post?  

Don’t you think there should be a web address listed on the back of each uninvited letter or catalogue, where you could go and register to be TAKEN OFF of their bulk mail list?

I know I can ban ALL junk mail, but there’s a few catalogues I want to keep getting – Pottery Barn for dreaming (if only I had a spare $20K), Hannah Anderson for the pyjamas.  And banning flyers/ads actually won’t stop the credit card offers anyway.

I’m far from being an eco fanatic, but the waste of it all gets to me, too. I wonder how many pounds of paper I toss in the recycle bin month? Stuff sent to me that’s unwanted, takes my time to open, and turns me off post mail all together? 

I’m usually not a fan of regulation (because although we need a certain level to function well, I’m convinced we have more than enough in most areas), BUT come on! Let’s add post mail to the email spam laws.  Please! 

Someone point me to the movement/petition/campaign for this.

AIRTEL fraud- beware of this fraud company
i use airtel mobile connection and my mobile number is 9840#####3.chennai .on 29 th march 2009 , in had 452indian rupees in my account balance. afternoon i started receiving 6 messages from airtel saying that i have downloaded themes, animations, java games from airtel live wap and they deducted money from my account balance. I DIDNT EVEN DOWNLOADED ANYTHING FROM AIRTEL.but unnecessarily deducted money from my account. they deducted 125 rupees for java games, 4times they deducted 30rs for themes, 15rs for animattions. now i have only 167rs as balance. i am totally frustated.i received these messages from number 64611030,64611015,64601115. i complained to airtel customer care – they took my complaint and gave me a customer complaint id number 0329112820. thats it they have never refunded the money back to my account. please somebody help and get my money back. no one in this world will waste so much money in animation . themes and games. i dont know why airtel deducted so much money from my account without any reason. please somebody help me getting money back . my phone number is 9840#####3. CORE CENTER please help me getting my hard earned money back from airtel. they deducted nearly 260 rs from my account.

so people who READING THIS BLOG REMEMBER ONE THING AIRTEL IS A BIG FRAUD ON EARTH LOOTING MONEY FROM CUSTOMERS.

MY RECOMMENDATION:::::
IF POSSIBLE NEVER GO FOR AIRTEL CONNECTION BETTER GO FOR RELIANCE AND AIRCEL.
1.NEVER SUBSCRIBE FOR AIRTEL GPRS.

2.NEVER HAVE YOUR ACCOUNT BALANCE MORE THAN 50RS OTHERWISE GET READY TO LOSE MONEY LIKE ME.

3.I HAVE SEVERAL LINKS SHOWING AIRTEL CHEATING CUSTOMERS LIKE THIS, STEALING , CHEATING , LOOTING MONEY FROM CUSTOMERS. THESE ARE FEW THE LINKS BELOW.

http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/sms-from-543212-and-64611030-c87094.html
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/airtel-c121915.html
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/deduction-from-ac-c128496.html
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/illegal-subscription-charges-c102592.html
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/airtel-c115715.html
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/illegal-deduction-of-money-from-account-c35696.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/illegal-money-deductions-c12645.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/airtel-india-c20165/page/0.html

because of space constraint, i cant post all thousands of links.

The dictionary’s definition…

Main Entry: RSS

Part of Speech: n

Definition: any of various XML file formats suitable for disseminating real-time information via subscription on the Internet

Example: RSS has become a popular technology for bloggers and podcasters to distribute their content.

Etymology: Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication

Usage: computing

Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)

Copyright © 2003-2009 Dictionary.com, LLC

Our definition…

RSS Feed is an internet tool used to deliver regularly changing web content. Many news-related websites, blog sites, and online publishers will have their site content connected to an RSS Feed so that the site’s readers can “subscribe” to their RSS Feed in order to receive notifications anytime that specific site updates or adds information.

FYI: While in the past, the word “subscribe” was known to have a dollar amount attached…when you “subscribe” to a feed, there is no cost involved.

Benefits of using RSS Feed…

-         Allows you to easily access the latest content from the sites you enjoy most

-         Saves time by delivering the information directly to you rather than you visiting multiple sites to receive information

-         Helps you secure your privacy more since there isn’t as much of a need to sign up for email newsletters

So…now that you know, feel free to subscribe to our blog via RSS Feed!