Yep, IT has a tough job. We’re supposed to implement business processes in software and the assumption is that they will work better than the version that was delivered by people and the expectations of users are often higher than we can practically deliver. But not all business processes are hard. Some of these, such as getting information to customers via e-mail, is actually pretty easy. Marriott, for example, is good at sending out newsletters (which they insist on calling “eNewsletters” — how 1990’s of them) and information about their services. Score one for Marriott IT. Unfortunately when it comes to unsubscribing it appears that the task is much, much harder. I just unsubscribed from Marriott’s newsletters and got a Web page with the following response:
Email Confirmation You have chosen not to receive Marriott email. Email address: SOMEONE@SOMEWHERE.COM Please allow 10 business days for processing.
Score minus one million for Marriott IT. Can someone tell me what the hell takes ten days for an unsubscribe to be processed? Are these people using Sinclair ZX80‘s for the job? There may be some rational explanation such as we batch them and run them through our mainframe-based list management system once per week but that only sounds rational if you think that qualifies as a business best practice (if you know of a better reason, do enlighten me). Guys, an unsubscribe should be immediate as in at most the same day it is requested. Anything longer and it simply shows that you don’t know what you’re doing.
