Firetrap: A case study on how not to manage your customer data

This saga begins with the unfortunate event of me buying something from Firetrap’s online shop. It was a mistake from the beginning. The product was overpriced and not especially good quality, but I foolishly paid it because I was in urgent need of a pair of jeans and bought from the first brand that popped into my head. This was definitely my error. Everything since then however… is a tale of woe emanating from what appears to be one of the worst online retailers in the UK.

Since my purchase - I’ve been receiving e-mails them at least 2 to 3 times per week. As usual, you tend to let these things build up until you’ve decided you’ve had enough and make the active decision to unsubscribe. Lo and behold - there is no unsubscribe link in their e-mails. They mention that if you’d like to stop receiving e-mails, to use the unsubscribe link - BUT THERE IS NO LINK. I guess EU data protection laws aren’t a concern for Firetrap.

Firetrap incompetence

Ok - so despite this incompetence I decided to try to log in to the Firetrap website and see if I could amend my e-mail marketing settings in there. Success! I could and several weeks ago changed it to NOT receive any marketing e-mails from Firetrap. Apparently… that isn’t enough for Firetrap to make 100% sure that you do, in fact, not want any of their marketing e-mails. So they have continued sending them to me.

Firetrap's continued incompetence

Ok so what next? Of course… customer services should be able to help. I sent their customer services an e-mail explaining the situation and received nothing but an automated response. A week later, I tried again and finally got a human response saying that they’d requested that my e-mail address be unsubscribed… but still I am receiving their marketing junk.

Firetrap e-mail incompetence

So as a final ditch attempt - I’ve posted on their Facebook page wall… twice. Alas the only reply I received suggested that I contact their customer support, rather doing something actually useful like trying to resolve my issue in the channel which they’ve already made themselves available through. So I made a friendly offer to the business to suggest agencies that would be less incompetent at managing their social presences for them.

Firetrap facebook

At this point in time. I’m still receiving their junk mail. Thanks Firetrap. Thanks for being so inept at customer data management, social marketing management and everything in between that dictates what GOOD looks like in digital.

Thanks for being a case study on how to fail.