On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:14:53 +0100, Ekin Caglar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>"Reputation" has always been the argument against non-compliance but it
>has been proven over and over again that big organisations have enough
>cache to fix any non-compliance problem. Remember BT, who weren't even on
>ICO's DP register until we pointed this out to them? How did this damage
>their reputation?
Your point is well made but I don't think we should simply dismiss the
idea that organisations don't care about their reputation. After all BT
did comply eventually. I remember being told some years ago(by Tescos
staff I was training at the time) about an ecommerce DP incident that
they took very seriously.
Essentially Tesco carried out a telephone survey of its online customers
asking them to rate its services - despite some of them having opted out
of being contacted. Tesco had the phone numbers because they said they
needed them if a delivery is delayed or an item is unavailable and they
refused to accept an online registration without one.
In the case I was told about a 15-minute conversation took place with a
customer who had asked not to be contacted and he made it clear he was
annoyed at being called. The conversation ended with the researcher
asking: "I guess you'll be saying no to the next question, but would you
mind being contacted by Tesco about special offers in future?"
The customer made a complaint and after more than a month spent finding
the cause, one of Tesco's head office staff called the customer to
apologise and explain what had gone wrong.
I don't know how you measure how hard it is to win a customer but I guess
that it's a lot harder to keep a dissatisfied one. Tescos staff who told
me about the incident said that it did cost staff time to investigate the
problem - time and effort that could have been spent on better things. So
I guess that whilst it may appear as if large companies have a cavalier
attitude to DP if you look a bit harder they also recognise that it can
affect their bottom line.
rgds,
Kevin Broadfoot
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
available to the world wide web community at large at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
Any queries about sending or receiving message please send to the list owner
[log in to unmask]
(all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|