A tale of two dishwashers: Buy one, buy it again, and again
- Reference: 1645781412
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/25/something_for_the_weekend/
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It's just my little fantasy. I have not really purchased three dishwashers. But a certain national retail chain of electrical goods wants me to.
In fact, it is so insistent that I should keep buying more dishwashers that the chains send me a daily email to remind me that if I don't buy another dishwasher immediately, I will miss a golden opportunity to own multiple dishwashers. Every day it's dishwashers, dishwashers, and I feel at any moment I might crack and buy another bloody dishwasher just to make them shut up about dishwashers. As the saying goes, if it keeps on raining, that levee's going to break.
[1]
The problem started when I bought a dishwasher.
[2]
[3]
Somewhat naively, I thought that would be the end of the matter. As a registered customer, I knew I would receive the usual follow-up emails from the retailer. The first one is always Were you satisfied with your buying experience? Then comes Would you like to write a review? If you are foolish enough to comply with this request, you get another asking Were you satisfied with your review-writing experience? This is rapidly followed by Were you satisfied by our previous email asking about your review-writing experience? and Were you satisfied by our previous email asking about our previous email asking about your experience of receiving emails asking about your satisfaction with the emails you are receiving?
One can only marvel at what must be going on at Customer Data Central.
[4]
I can almost imagine the development project meeting at which the team leader wireframed the data flow plan for everyone on a whiteboard:
"This is first-party data, remember. The customer told us they want to buy a dishwasher. It's their own fault for clicking the 'Buy' button, right? So, once they click 'Buy', let's have a script insert the usual email time-bomb. Make sure it is triggered the moment the mechanic ticks the box marked 'Delivered and installed.' Any questions?"
A hand goes up at the back: "What's in the email time-bomb?"
[5]
"Whoa, we have a newbie in the audience!" chuckles the team leader before putting on their serious face again to address the kid directly. "We follow standard retail data practice: get the system to auto-generate daily emails telling the customer to buy another dishwasher."
"What, any other dishwasher?" blurts the apprentice. A few sniggers can be heard around the room.
"Of course not, that would be ridiculous! No, the emails must tell the customer to buy the same model of dishwasher."
"So… er… they'd buy two dishwashers?" stutters the youth, uncertainly. "Exactly the same dishwasher… twice?"
"Yes, yes, that's right," team leader responds, a little impatiently this time. "And once they've bought the second one, set up another time-bomb to make them buy a third. Any other questions? No? Good, get on with it, then."
"Why would anyone…?" begins the green dev before being shushed and elbow-jabbed by the more experienced members of the team as they shuffle towards the door of the project room, trying not to knock over the mops or tread in the buckets on their way out.
If only it were just dishwashers. I rather recklessly bought a new washing machine late last year when the old one that came with the house inevitably packed up. Since then, I have received regular invitations to buy more washing machines, of the same brand and model. At the time, I assumed my inconsistent application of ad blockers and cookie crackers had somehow mangled my customer data in such a way that the electrical retailer thought I was running a launderette.
The dishwasher debacle suggests otherwise. Either that or the retailer presumes I've moved out of the service wash business and into catering. Or maybe it thinks I am running some sort of combined clothes-and-crockery hygiene operation from home, a disrupter in the personal paraphernalia cleaning industry. Pans+Pants, Socks+Sideplates, Cardigans+Cutlery, that sort of thing. I might write a booking app and call it "Mugr" or "Shreddr" or "FFSStpSndgEmlsAbtDshwshrs-r".
You might be forgiven for assuming we had moved on from the days of Amazon's often-hilarious "You might like…" suggestions based on previous purchases. For months you could be happily using Amazon to search for and obtain various tech components to avoid having to go down to your [6]local Maplin (yes, this is a while ago) and suffer the indignity of taking advice from an acne-riddled 16-year-old shop assistant.
Then one day you made the mistake of ordering a present for a cousin's newborn. Just the one, mind. Still, from that moment onwards, Amazon immediately stopped offering deals on three-phase isolation transformers and instead, for literally years afterwards, obsessively stuffed your recommendations with every conceivable edition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar .
This was old-school customer data mangling. In hindsight, the artless manner in which user data was interpreted back then is forehead-slappingly terrible. But it was also amusing and I forgave its shortcomings.
Today, it isn't and I don't. This time, it's not amateurism. It is deliberate.
Not long ago I bought a music CD from an online retailer – not Amazon, by the way – and promptly began receiving emails from them saying "If you like this, you might like…" and recommending that I buy exactly the same CD all over again.
[7]Food for thought on the return to the office
[8]'Can you identify your assailants?' Yes, they were pixelated! I'd know them anywhere!
[9]Not looking forward to a greyscale 2022? Then look back to the past in 64 colours
[10]Predictive Dirty Dozen: What will and won't happen in 2022 (unless it doesn't/does)
You can't fault the underlying logic, I suppose: I did like the CD, which is why I bought it. It makes perfect sense that if I liked it, I would still like it a week later – but not quite enough to buy it a second time. Besides, I have discovered that it is possible to play my CD more than once.
Even Airbnb is getting into the act. Having booked a week-long stay in Angoulême for the famous comics festival next month, I am now receiving messages from Airbnb urging me to book myself into additional properties on precisely the same dates. "If you have booked a stay in Angoulême in March…" (the data-mangling logic apparently determines) "…you will want to book a stay in Angoulême in March."
Given that I probably won't be able to rest my head on one pillow at my originally booked location while my feet are at the other end of another bed on the other side of town, I guess I will have to set my alarm to wake me up so I can travel back and forth between both properties throughout the night.
Now, Twitter has taken the next step. Ignoring my actual follows and interests, it has spontaneously decided that I want to see tweets from rap artists.
Nobody can explain why. Lots of people enjoy listening to rap; I just happen to not be one of them. I don't listen to rap. I don't know who these rap artists are. I'm certainly not interested in what they are tweeting about. I keep tapping on "Not interested" and "Block" but to no avail.
The logic has moved on from "If you liked this…" and morphed into "We think you like this based on a fundamental error in our customer data management and nothing on God's Earth will persuade us otherwise."
Unfortunately, this twisted logic in retail customer data programming has become the new norm, and there appears to be nothing you can do about it. Crying won't help you, praying won't do any good. We're going down, I tell you. That levee's going to break.
[11]Youtube Video
Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling tech journalism, training and digital publishing. He would like to stress that he does not dislike contemporary rap music for the usual fogeyish reasons. He also can't stand country and western music, and is getting worried that Twitter might find out. More at [12]Autosave is for Wimps and [13]@alidabbs .
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yhi221FzVplByKDLqyJUbwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yhi221FzVplByKDLqyJUbwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yhi221FzVplByKDLqyJUbwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yhi221FzVplByKDLqyJUbwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2018/09/26/a_story_of_m_a_failed_retailer/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/18/something_for_the_weekend/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/something_for_the_weekend/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/07/something_for_the_weekend/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/31/something_for_the_weekend/
[11] https://youtu.be/LH0-WXUFY2k
[12] https://autosaveisforwimps.substack.com
[13] https://twitter.com/alidabbs
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Adverts
...the phone eavesdropping...
Siri, please get me my coat.
Here you are, would you like a scarf with that, only £9.99 at ThatGoodStorePayingMeToTellYouThis
Re: Adverts
> I've not experienced the phone eavesdropping on conversation yet, but I guess it's just a matter of time.
Well remember there are two forms of phone eavesdropping, only one will result in your frontdoor being knock down in the small hours...
You do not know what is good for you
You have to understand, the algorithms have been tuned for your convenience. They are anticipating your every liking and thought. Your spending and taste is predicted and it will happen, even if you do not yet know.
Please do not resist the inevitable. You know you want to sit down and relax. Please let the algorithm help you put your feet up. Here, buy this nice kitchen installable CD ish Washer for your entire homogeneous CD collection of this one very likable song. You know you want it. You know you need it.
All part of gullability testing
"The first one is always Were you satisfied with your buying experience? Then comes Would you like to write a review? If you are foolish enough to comply with this request, you get another asking Were you satisfied with your review-writing experience? This is rapidly followed by Were you satisfied by our previous email asking about your review-writing experience? and Were you satisfied by our previous email asking about our previous email asking about your experience of receiving emails asking about your satisfaction with the emails you are receiving?"
I don't know how effective it really is, but I always do my shopping in a private window with all the usual protections. It seems to reduce the requests to make a repeat purchase. I presume that eventually advertisers will eventually work out how to make private windows non-private (as far as cross-site cookies etc. are concerned) and there will no longer be any reason to use private windows.
As far as reviews are concerned I always put that I am disappointed and put "I am pissed off with surveys" as the reason for being disappointed. I don't have much hope that they will get the message but it is somehow cathartic.
Re: All part of gullability testing
I've given up on those 'Net Promoter Score' surveys ('rate X from 0-10') after I discovered my 'I haven't had a chance to form an opinion'/'I've never used it'/'I will never ever use it' score of '5' actually has me down as a 'detractor'
0-6 is a 'detractor', 7-8 is 'passive' and only 9-10 are 'promotors'
Why is your opinion compulsory? What ever happened to the 'I have no opinion' option?)
Internal advert filters
I long ago realised that there was absolutely no point in clicking on any online ads. Even the ads that actually look interesting (rare though they are) end up taking me either to some virus-riddled hell-hole or to something completely different from what was advertised.
Instead, my brain has long since learned to blank out those ads that ad-blocker hasn't already dealt with. I swear, if a banner along the top or down the right-hand side of a web page flickers in a fraction of a second after the rest of the page, it might as well be plain white for all that I notice it. The "ads" tag in Google search results might as well be an invisibility cloak, for all I engage with the corresponding result.
That's the one uncomfortable truth that ad-slingers can't quite get their heads around. No matter how attention-grabbing or obnoxious you make an ad, no power in the world can force a viewer to pay attention if they don't want to.
Twatter - I had similar
I wanted nothing from them, just notice if anyone had replied. Cancelled all contact emails.
"Complete nobodies off some realitiy TV crap you may be interested in"
Delete account, no more emails.
And I was chatting with a well known TV person before about a friend of mine she knew. Did that register with twatter? No.
I had contacted a couple of authors, some games people and one TV person. Absolutely NOTHING to do with reality crap.
Not saying who it is as both my friend and I could be IDed from it. The TV person borrowed his car!
It's all about the money
Those twitter recommendations for rappers are all about who's paying who and who's been determined to be "important". They don't care these people are way outside your circle of interest and that these are vapid idiots no-one should pay any attention to in the first place, let alone make them "a celebrity". It's one of the reasons I stay far far away from Twitter (and Facebook)
Re: It's all about the money
I only got peace after deleting my account I used 5 or 6 times, over a couple of years.
Dishwashers. No Engine washers
Unless you do a lot of vehicle rebuilds are they worth it?
I could get my last car cylinder heads in one, but this current car no.*
But if you are rebuilding bike engines useful bits of kit.
But here a washing up bowl and fairy liquid deals with dishes in less time than it takes to load and unload a motor vehicle engine component washer.
* I did know of people chucking a couple of V6 heads in them.
FFSStpSndgEmlsAbtDshwshrs-r
A potential instant hit.
French version needed?
NonLaVsel-r ?
Bought a shed
Bought a garden shed once - company decided this was clearly me dipping a toe in the water of shed collecting, so bombarded me for about a year with emails suggesting I buy more of the same shed. Eventually, crestfallen, they must have come to the conclusion that shed hoarding wasn't for me.
Either that, or they weren't confident in the quality of the shed, and figured I'd need to replace it soon.
Re: Bought a shed
At least multiple sheds is a thing quite a few people do (unlike dishwashers).
I don't have lots of sheds, but when I walk around the local area I see plenty of large properties that do (not unusual to see 5+ in some of them!)
Why would anyone…?
They won't of course - but it's not about effectiveness, it's about cost. This type of "marketing" is essentially free, so quantity displaces quality. It's the same as the customer "service" chatbot: they're essentially just a teleprinter with a loop of paper tape repeating "if it isn't on our website you're wasting your time", but they relentlessly deter contact with more costly minimum-wage phone-drones. That they're both touted as successful applications of AI tells you a lot about that subject, too.
And besides, who knows what marketing is effective anyway? It's always described as "crucial" and "scientific" when sales are booming but when they're falling there always seems to be some other explanation.
Mind you, having two dishwashers isn't unknown. An acquaintance of mine did that and stored the clean crockery in one, moving it to the other as it became dirty. When the second dishwasher was full, it ran a cleaning cycle and the process was repeated in reverse. Though I might foresee a rice-and-chessboard escalation in the marketing if you go down this route.
I've mentioned this many times on these pages, I never get recommendations for consumable items again. For example, if I buy coffee beans I never get a recomendation for other coffee beans I might like unless the original ones are out of stock. However if I buy a paint roller and tray set I get bombarded with recommendations for professional grade decorating tools.
Sticking with the coffee theme, for a few years I've been using a Zyliss cafetiere mug as it's a convenient all in one way to make decent coffee at the office, particularly when you're a contractor and get shoved in a corner next to the loos designated as the "hot desking area". Said mug is starting to leak so I've been looking for a replacement and settled on an Aeropress Go, which I've purchased. And of course the recommendations for it keep coming, despite the fact that I have purchased it.`
Kudos!
"Whoa, we have a newbie in the audience!" chuckles the team leader before putting on their serious face again to address the kid directly. "We follow standard retail data practice: get the system to auto-generate daily emails telling the customer to buy another dishwasher."
This is John Cleese level shit!
Re: Kudos!
O M Effing G. Can you imagine a TV series - let's call it Fawlty Advertising - with Mr Cleese as the embattled and volcanic CEO, Manuel as Creative Director and Sibyl as his PA.
Roll that on with some subplots based on their IT dept, along the lines of Simon and the PFY. Who would be best to portray the calculating vindictiveness of Simon and the cunning of the PFY?
It'd be like The Office but with more lift shafts and unsecured windows, not to mention the occasional burning BMW, roll of carpet and empty sacks of quicklime.
How soon could that be screened?
Pretty please.
And Now For Something Completely Similar
I still go from time to time to Google News. There's a nice functionality: you can say you aren't interested in a news. The funny thing is that you can say it two, three, five times, because Google News keeps showing you the same news, again and again.
I may have told 4,294 times to Google News I'm not interested in news about car crashes (yeah, I know, I'm stubborn). That's probably why I get two articles about car crashes each time I visit.
So two possibilities:
- AI, my arse.
- it's intentional as Mr. Dabbs says.
Or maybe a combination of the two....
Marvel?
One can only marvel at what must be going on at Customer Data Central.
Marvel?
I beg to differ Mr. Dabbs.
We're in 2022 and everyone knows that they (along with the marketing droids) are nothing but brain-dead AHs.
What could possibly be going on that would marvel anyone?
But them , of course.
Have a great week-end.
Best,
O.
Personalised Ads
I've been saying this for nearly a decade. Personalised ads are totally useless.
Why do I have to put up with all the thousands of tracking cookies to keep getting adverts that are totally irrelevant to me?
YouTube at the moment, seems to think I am a game playing retiree with rheumatism, in danger of shingles, that I play Call of Duty and that my newborn baby should be vaccinated against meningococcal infection...
Only, I'm not retired, I don't have rheumatism, shingles isn't an issue, I don't play CoD and I don't have a newborn baby, so personalised advertising is... 100% inaccurate!
Just profile the page I'm looking at and leave me alone, you probably have a better chance of getting the advertising right, if you look at the page I'm reading, about big iron routers, than by some crazy broken AI looking at the data it has collected about, throwing it out and making things up at random... It at least can't be any less accurate than the personalised advertising.
Adverts
Adverts are worse. Search for a product, and then everywhere you look is an advert for said product.
I've not experienced the phone eavesdropping on conversation yet, but I guess it's just a matter of time.