I received a rather casual sounding call at my office from a fellow at Northwestern Mutual. It seems that this guy had just gotten done talking to my good friend X. X, being someone I have never met face to face and only know through social networking. The fellow was surprised that X hadn’t called me about his call! X had, allegedly, dropped my name as someone who may be interested in the financial services that Northwestern Mutual has to offer.
At this point, I hang up on the salesman from Northwestern Mutual. Obviously, X would never have dropped my name because they barely know my name. This sales tool was lying. So the investigation began.
I checked my phone log and found the number for the Northwestern Mutual salesman. With a simple internet search of his phone number, I found his Northwestern Mutual profile page. Marcus. Hello, Marcus. Let’s figure out how you found my work number and developed your lie.
It was a pretty simple connection, actually. Marcus was connected with X on LinkedIn, the social site for finding job connections. Marcus had been going through and grabbing the names of people who were connected to X from LinkedIn, the names of the companies they worked for, looking up the main phone number for their offices, and making up a false back stories about being referred to call them by X.
Number one, I’m pretty sure this is a misuse of LinkedIn’s user agreement. Number two, those are some pretty shady sales tactics. Marcus used social media in the worst and most destructive manner possible. He exposed himself as ignorant and tarnished the name of Northwestern Mutual at the same time. He burned the social media bridges he was using, instead of making smart use of them and growing actual connections.
A happy customer tells one person, an unhappy customer tells everyone. And I’m not even a customer! If I was ever in a position to use any sort of financial service, I certainly wouldn’t go with or recommend Northwestern Mutual. Also, I think I’ll blog about this.
Dear Mr. McKeown,
My name is Shawn and I work at Northwestern Mutual’s headquarters in Milwaukee. I wanted to let you know that I saw your blog post.
I was very dismayed to see that a representative had violated our company’s social networking policy. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and the frustration that his actions caused. Please know that this is not how the company instructs its representatives to act.
Also, please know that I am taking immediate action. I am reaching out to the representative tonight to ensure that he fully understands, appreciates and follows our policy in the future.
Thanks for bringing the situation to my attention. I truly appreciate your openness. I am including my contact information below. If you have any questions about the company’s policies, or if you would like to discuss this situation further, please contact me at your convenience.
Sincerely,
-Shawn Rolland
Corporate Relations Specialist
Northwestern Mutual
shawnrolland@northwesternmutual.com
(414) 665-6198
Aric,
I am too sorry for the way this gentlemen went about this from your perspective. Please take a look at the reputation of a company that has been around for 155 years before you discount them. They have received much praise from Fortune Magazine, JD Powers, and many, many others for very good practices and really take care of their clients. Don’t let one bad apple spoil it for you. You are right in your words that you are not a client but I venture so say that if you were, you would not be disappointed at all with their products and their above board approaches. You could not have a better company in your corner to protect you and your money.