So: your company runs a spiffy little promotion intended to grab you some brand-new customers.  Super — but how you treat existing customers who also happen to respond is a thorny and important question. (And, studies show: existing customers are, in fact, the ones who pay the most attention to everything new you do as a brand.)

The way Rachel, who was womanning a booth for The New York Times yesterday, treated me as an existing customer is, in my experience, essentially unheard of.  Yet it should be considered the epitome of what we all want from the people who represent our businesses.

I was walking through a crafts fair in the Pennsylvania countryside as she trolled for fresh New York Times subscribers at her booth. She had brought along what I feel was lovely swag as bait:

If your offer's good, prepare for existing customers wanting it too.

She gave her pitch:  Subscribe to New York Times home delivery, only $X a week, get great gifts!

I said quietly, “Sorry–already subscribe.”

Rachel: “Are you getting all seven days delivered currently?  I can upgrade you if you aren’t.”

“Unless you’re going to start a new evening edition, I don’t think there’s a way to get more papers delivered.”

Rachel: “But you’re eying the gifts, aren’t you. I’m going to give you something anyway, for being a great customer.  What would you like?”

****To interrupt the dialog here for a moment: Note that at this point I’ve just been walking by, at a crafts fair.  I haven’t asked her for anything, and I have nothing to offer her in terms of making her numbers.  And I haven’t even said anything about wanting the swag. She just sees it in my eyes.  So she is giving exceptional, anticipatory service to someone who isn’t even the target customer of the promotion. ****

Me: “Whatever you think my wife would most like me to bring home. What would you recommend?”

We settled on this red bag.

—–

The encounter is both incredible and a little unsettling.  Unsettling because of the questions that were left in my mind.  As follows:

1.   Will Rachel get some bragging rights if her manager sees this post?  In other words, was she doing what The New York Times brilliantly wants her to do (support existing subscribers, who they recognize are even more valuable than a johnny-come-lately signing up temporarily on impulse)?

Or, did she get in trouble when she got back to the office?  In other words, was all she got for her good judgment a slap on the wrist for coming back one bag short?

2. Come to think of it, not only was I not a “fresh subscriber,” she had no way to literally prove that I was an existing subscriber. Zero. Yet “zero” is also a good approximation of the odds that I was lying. Why?  Context.  Who goes to a crafts fair in Bucks County, PA with a dastardly plot to score some swag using a cleverly-executed script about being a full-on Times subscriber?

So, do you give your employees the discretion Rachel apparently had to realize the importance of context?  Or do you cripple your business by overwhelming it with safeguards intended to prevent the rare bad guys, the lady who wrote a bad check in 2001 and made you swear you’d never be taken advantage of again?

But really, the most unsettling question is:

3. Why are so many new-customer recruitments handled in ways that make existing customers feel either bad about or, at best, nothing about the brands they are intended to grow?

Thanks for the bag, Rachel! And thanks to the people at The New York Times who (I hope) said it was cool for her to give it to me. If any of you do happen to see this post, shoot me a line and let me know your answers to questions 1 and 2.  The answer to #3 is really up to the rest of us.