【英语生活】你被炒了……

Last week on The Apprentice television show, two teams had to design a box of tissues and come up with a to catch the attention of consumers. This week I have decided to run a similar competition in which a chief executive has to woo his customers with a short e-mail or letter. My finalists are Vikram Pandit, chief of Citigroup, and Johnnie Boden, founder of the upmarket mail-order clothing group.

Mr Pandit tapped out his e-mail a fortnight ago and sent it to all holders of Citi credit cards. It was forwarded to me by various people, including a female Financial Times reader based in London. It is her version that the judges are using.

Dear TERNATIONAL, it began. It was not a good start, as her name is not Ternational, it is Barbara. Her company is called Minto International, and so one can only imagine the automatic e-mail system randomly opted for the last bit, hoping for the best.

I want you to be among the first to know . . .

It went on, which was not very good either. Citi must have hundreds of thousands of credit card customers. So Mr Pandit did not really want Ternational to be among the first to know at all, and so Ternational felt a little annoyed at the disingenuity of the sentiment.

. . . about the bold steps we are taking at Citi to be the premier, global, fully integrated financial services firm.

And even if she was the first to know, why would she care? When important things happen it is nice to be at the front of the information queue: when your job has been axed or your spouse is about to leave you. But when Citi is taking bold steps to be the premier, global, blah, blah? One would not be bothered one way or another.

Our objective is to create for our customers an experience in which services are seamless, payments and transfers effortless, and distances meaningless.

In its badly worded way, this is fair enough, but it is aiming pretty low. Distance surely became meaningless the day international telephone lines were laid. And banks should have sorted out their payment systems by now. My bank, First Direct, seems to have cracked it, so I do not see why Citi thinks it is such a big deal.

My commitment – and the commitment of everyone at Citi – is to work tirelessly around the world and around the clock to deliver outstanding value and service as we continue to earn your trust and that of every customer we serve . . . wherever you are and where ever you need to be.

Sincerely, Vikram Pandit

This is aiming too high. If I were a client I would not want Mr Pandit to work around the clock. I would want him to get at least seven hours solid sleep a night, as he has a jolly big bank to run that is having a lot of trouble at the moment. He is trying to sell off $500bn of assets and get $15bn off the cost base, keep the unions off his back, and reassure shareholders.

The only people, as far as I can gather, that were not causing any bother were the credit card holders. But now, alas, they are wondering what was the point of a message that said their bank was taking bold steps, but then did not give even the tiniest hint of what these bold steps might be.

So how did the other team do? Johnnie Boden penned a letter that went out to selected customers last week who had stopped buying from him.

Hello Mrs Kellaway, mine began. Though not quite my name, it was close enough.

Last year you were one of our best customers. You bought armfuls of our colourful finery, showed us off and garnered the oohs and aahs of all you passed. So, thank you. Thank you very much.

This was briefly puzzling as I do not like Boden's colourful finery, but then I remembered a couple of sober suits I bought for my shopaphobe husband.

This year . . . something's not quite right. Maybe we haven't pushed your buttons quite right. Maybe it's because spring forgot to be spring, or because houses are now worth less than a packet of crisps.

The style was maddeningly jaunty. I particularly take exception to the phrase “push your buttons”. The only buttons I have are on my clothes which do not come from Johnnie and which require doing up rather than pushing. Yet I went on reading to find that Johnnie claimed to be so impatient for my order he was “hopping from foot to foot like an incontinent uncle”.

I was not moved by his uncle's bladder control, yet I went on reading until the end, where was attached a big £10 voucher, saying: “Use me quick I run out soon.”

Boden, you can go back to the house. I do not like your prose style, but you won because – just like the winning team on the TV last week – you got my attention and thrust your message down my throat. Your prize is that I am now going to buy some more trousers for my husband as I notice that after 18 months' hard wearing his old ones are getting a bit shiny on the bottom.

Vikram, you do not have a clear message. Yours was a vague wave in the customers' direction that left them with the uneasy impressing Citi was not waving but drowning. Sorry, Vikram, you're fired.

在5月份的电视节目《学徒》(The Apprentice)中，两组人必须设计一个纸巾盒，并构思一个电视广告以吸引消费者。

最近，我决定开办另一个类似的竞赛：一位首席执行官必须用一封简短的电子邮件或是信件来吸引自己的顾客。我选择的决赛人选是花旗集团(Citigroup)的潘伟迪(Vikram Pandit)、高端成衣邮购集团约翰尼•波登(Johnnie Boden)公司的同名创始人约翰尼•波登。

潘伟迪在几周前写了一封电子邮件，并将之寄给了所有花旗信用卡的用户。好几个人将这份电邮转给了我，其中包括一位常驻伦敦的英国《金融时报》的女性读者。评审们用的就是她的版本。

“亲爱的TERNATIONAL，”邮件的一开始写道。这可不是一个好的开始，因为她的名字不叫TERNATIONAL，她叫芭芭拉(Barbara)。她公司的名字是Minto International，所以我们只能非常乐观地假设，自动电邮系统随机选择了名字的最后部分。

“我想让您率先知道……”

这也不太好。花旗肯定拥有数十万信用卡用户，所以潘伟迪绝对没有想着让Ternational成为率先知道这个消息的人之一。对于这种不真诚的情感，Ternational感觉有些不快。

“……我们花旗正在采取大胆步骤，以成为一个领先的、全球化的、充分一体化的金融服务公司。”

就算她是第一个知道这个消息的人，又怎样呢？当重要的事情发生时，第一个知道消息当然很好：比如当你丢掉工作，或者当你的配偶打算离开你时。但当花旗说自己“正在采取大胆步骤，以成为一个领先的、全球化的……”这些废话时，人们不会因此而伤脑筋。

“我们的目标是为顾客创造一种体验——让他们感觉到服务是无可挑剔，支付和转账轻而易举，距离没有任何意义。”

在这封遣词造句非常差劲的邮件上，这已经相当不错了，但它的目标太低。当国际电话线铺设起来的时候，距离显然没有了意义；到目前为止，银行早应该对他们的支付系统进行了分类整理。我的银行——英国的First Direct似乎已经解决了这个问题，因此我并不明白为什么花旗还认为这是一个大问题。

“我的承诺——每一个花旗人的承诺：在世界范围内不知疲倦地工作，每时每刻为顾客输送卓越的价值和服务，持续不断地赢得您的信任，赢得我们所服务的每一个顾客的信任……无论您在何处，无论您将要去往何方。

“真诚的，潘伟迪”

这个目标太高了。如果我是一个顾客的话，我不希望潘伟迪先生昼夜不停地工作，我希望他每天晚上至少有7小时不间断的睡眠，因为有一个目前有诸多麻烦的巨型银行需要他打理。他正努力剥离5000亿美元的资产、削减150亿美元的费用成本、保持工会对他的支持，并且使股东们重新恢复信心。

在我所能了解到的人里面，唯一没有产生任何困扰的是那些信用卡持有者。但现在，唉，他们要开始对这则消息的目的感到疑惑了：它指出了花旗银行正在采取大胆的步骤，但并未接着给出一点点的暗示，说明这些大胆的步骤可能是什么。

那么，另一组是怎么做的呢？约翰尼•波登最近写了一封信，有选择地发给一些顾客：他们都是已经停止向其购物的人。

“您好，凯拉韦女士，”给我的信如此开始。尽管与我的名字不是完全地契合，但已经足够地接近了。

“去年，您是我们最佳顾客之一。您购买了许多色彩缤纷的服饰，为我们展示宣传，所到之处，称赞之声不绝于耳。因此，感谢您，非常感谢您。”

这让我感到一阵迷惑，因为我不喜欢波登的鲜艳服饰，但接着，我想起了我曾为我那不喜欢逛街的丈夫买过几套朴素的西装。

“今年……有些地方似乎不是很对劲。可能我们没有按对你的按钮；可能是因为春天忘了来临，或者因为房屋现在比一袋薯片还便宜。”

语言风格惊人地自信。我尤其反对“按对按钮”这一词组。我那些有纽扣的衣服并非来自约翰尼，并且它们需要扣好，而不是按。不过，我还是继续往下读，并且发现约翰尼宣称自己是如此地急切盼望我的订单，以至于他“像一位内急的叔叔一样不停地跺脚。”

我没有被他的“叔叔内急”这一比方而打动，但我接着往下读，一直读到了结尾。结尾处，附上了一张大大的10英镑优惠购物券，上面写着：“赶快使用我，我很快就到期了。”

波登，你可以回到屋里去了。我不喜欢你散文式的风格，但你赢了，因为正像电视节目上的获胜小组一样，你吸引了我的注意力，并且你的信息正中我的要害。你得到的奖赏就是，我现在就去为我的丈夫多买几条裤子，因为我发现，在18个月的摩擦后，他的旧裤子底部已经有一点发亮了。

潘伟迪，你的信息不明确。你的信息让顾客摸不着头脑。这给他们留下了一个心神不宁的印象：花旗不是在水中搏击，而是在溺死。对不起，潘伟迪，你被解雇了。

译者/李碧波、董琴