Family Pooling Fail

[peakhour]

Hi All

Small complaint about an email my wife just received from Velocity.

As the WP in the family, I have family pooling set up so all of the points go to my account.

Last night I seemingly innocuously updated my residential address in my Velocity account.

This morning my wife received the below email from Velocity:

"Dear Mrs xx_XX,
All members of a Family Pool must reside at the same residential address.
As the beneficiary of your Family Pool has a different residential address to your own, you have been removed as a contributor from this pooling relationship. Different residential addresses within a Family Pooling relationship are a breach of our Terms and Conditions.
However, if you or your family would like to create a new compliant Family Pool this can be done within My Account.
For more information please refer to Family Benefits.
Kind regards,
Velocity Frequent Flyer"

Now I understand that the system picked up the change in address and verified it for family pooling, not an issue.

Although it would have been helpful for the system to prompt me when I updated my address that family pooling would be impacted.

After receiving the email we updated my wife's account with our new address and set up family pooling once more.

My issue is with the wording of the email above.

For some reason, Velocity and many other companies these days think that signing an email with Kind regards allows them to use whatever language or phrasing in the aforementioned.

Is it too much to expect that as a customer or member of the program, that they treat me similarly in email, as they would in person?

Instead of abruptly informing me of that the outcome of my change of address is a breach of their terms and conditions as though I am some sort of criminal, surely they could word it more politely and informatively?

Something like "We noticed you updated your address recently. As a member with family pooling set up, we wanted to remind you that all linked Velocity member accounts must share the same residential address. If you would like to continue to receive the benefits of family pooling, please have the relevant family members also update their residential address listed in their Velocity account. Once the addresses have been updated then family pooling can be set up once more."

or really anything other than "you breached our terms and conditions".

peakhour

 

[mannej]

Is the wording of this email really worth getting your knickers in a twist over?

 

[Denali]

I dont have a problem with the tone of Velocity's email.

I think this is one where you type it out, think about it for 24hrs and then burn/delete it.

 

[JohnK]

Is the wording of this email really worth getting your knickers in a twist over?

Sounds like something bad was done. Tone is all wrong. Not worth worrying about but worrying that someone at Velocity thinks this email is ok.

 

[mannej]

Sounds like something bad was done. Tone is all wrong. Not worth worrying about but worrying that someone at Velocity thinks this email is ok.

The tone is factual without sugar coating it - as Denali mentioned the easiest action is to update the address details and move on.

 

[burmans]

The tone is factual without sugar coating it - as Denali mentioned the easiest action is to update the address details and move on.

Tend to agree, there is a lot of lovey-lovey marketing bull**** in emails which Id be quite happy to do without. Seems to me that companies get damned if they do, damned if they don't sometimes, for me this is factual. Sure they could have been a little politer but aside from misleading you that they really do give a damn about you as an individual what would this have achieved?

 

[peakhour]

The tone is factual without sugar coating it - as Denali mentioned the easiest action is to update the address details and move on.

I would argue that the wording is not factual, per se, as our address is the same and we had not breached the terms and conditions in reality, save for updating the details in the second account.

As said in the post, I already updated the details. I'm not intending to write to Velocity about it.

End of the day all I'm saying is that I believe that the wording and the tone of the email could be improved, given that I am their customer who has not done anything wrong.

Keeping in mind that the site does not provide any way of updating addresses of multiple accounts simultaneously, then the vast majority of customers receiving this email would likely be in the same position as me.

Meaning that they are living at the same address, just have not updated the related account details as yet, rather than actually having moved away.

 

[mannej]

I would argue that the wording is not factual, per se, as our address is the same and we had not breached the terms and conditions in reality, save for updating the details in the second account.

As said in the post, I already updated the details. I'm not intending to write to Velocity about it.

End of the day all I'm saying is that I believe that the wording and the tone of the email could be improved, given that I am their customer who has not done anything wrong.

Keeping in mind that the site does not provide any way of updating addresses of multiple accounts simultaneously, then the vast majority of customers receiving this email would likely be in the same position as me.

Meaning that they are living at the same address, just have not updated the related account details as yet, rather than actually having moved away.

With the information they had in the system at the time the email was sent, yes it was as you have admitted that you may have updated the address by mistake.

 

[peakhour]

With the information they had in the system at the time the email was sent, yes it was as you have admitted that you may have updated the address by mistake.

No I didn't make any mistake with the address, not sure where you got that idea. And as I said, there is no way to update both accounts at the same time, so it's not the users fault that the system is lacking the required functionality.

 

[Deleted member]

Is the wording of this email really worth getting your knickers in a twist over?

The email letter from Velocity is offensive and high handed.
Furthermore I don't see any "twisted" knickers in the OP.

 

[mannej]

The email letter from Velocity is offensive and high handed.
Furthermore I don't see any "twisted" knickers in the OP.

Offensive is one thing the email is not.

 

[scwappy]

Whilst I wouldn't call the email offensive, it could be phrased much better in order to get their message across.

 

[Denali]

.....
Last night I seemingly innocuously updated my residential address in my Velocity account. This morning my wife received the below email from Velocity....

Keeping in mind that the site does not provide any way of updating addresses of multiple accounts simultaneously, .....

Looking at the timeline, you updated address last night and this morning your wife received the email.

Even if VA allowed for a 10, 20, 60min delay for all to update address - you seemed to have exceeded that.

Not that I consider VAs systems sophisticated enough to allow for a address change time delay update sync.

The email could have been padded with a bit more fluff but thats either annoying (VX childish emergency evac & website comes to mind) or can be misinterpreted because the T&Cs werent clearly highlighted.

 

[Ausbt]

Picking up on the 'Kind regards' thing, I get annoyed by my colleagues leaving their default email sign-offs and signatures when writing to me personally, their colleague. I change mine to 'regards, Ausbt'. My colleagues give me back "Should you have any questions, feel free to contact me, Colleague". Really? Feel free to contact you, should I? Listen fellow-cubicle bunny, if I want to contact you I damn well will. I don't have to feel 'free'. I'm come over to your little rabbit-hole, sit on your desk and stare intently into your widening eyes and just ask "did you?" Huh?!

...feel free to feel my butt, I say. Happy Easter!

 

[CPMaverick]

Offensive? Really? Wow, you have to be very thin skinned to be offended by this. It is a straightforward email. It does sound like it was written by an IT guy and not a marketing person. It can definitely be written in a more friendly way... but I wouldn't have given it a second thought.

 

[burmans]

Picking up on the 'Kind regards' thing, I get annoyed by my colleagues leaving their default email sign-offs and signatures when writing to me personally, their colleague. I change mine to 'regards, Ausbt'. My colleagues give me back "Should you have any questions, feel free to contact me, Colleague". Really? Feel free to contact you, should I? Listen fellow-cubicle bunny, if I want to contact you I damn well will. I don't have to feel 'free'. I'm come over to your little rabbit-hole, sit on your desk and stare intently into your widening eyes and just ask "did you?" Huh?!

...feel free to feel my butt, I say. Happy Easter!

And to think, some of us thought the OP might be a bit sensitive! You've certainly trumped that.

 

[serfty]

Last year I know of several members with velocity accounts that were suspended pending family pooling review (affected members were were invited to provide input) and some were indeed closed shortly after with some now ex members experiencing significant losses of Velocity points.

I would be grateful for such an email as received by the OP, basically giving me a heads up that I needed to make sure further changes happened.