Testing designed to annoy customers redux

About a year ago, I was upset by a company that blamed its annoying behavior toward customers on “market testing.” Well, I just ran into another one. I won’t name them because they have otherwise provided very good service, but this was just a weird situation that needs to be discussed. If you recognize this as your company, please fix it, but all of us should examine our customer testing with fresh eyes to make sure that we are focused on customer relationships rather than doing a good test.

It all started with a text message to my wife’s cell phone.
Linda was expecting a delivery the next day. Unlike many annoying companies, this one actually committed to a two-hour window based on our schedule. (Why is this so rare?) So, already we were happier than usual with the delivery experience.
Then came that text message to Linda’s cell phone confirming the delivery time. Neat idea, right? Yes, but the message had a completely different delivery time than the one we agreed on. So now, what should have been a nice customer communications approach becomes a problem, because Linda must now call to make find out which delivery time is correct.
So, she worked her way through the phone menu to eventually get human being on the line. She explained the situation, but the customer service people knew nothing about it, insisting that their company could not have sent that text message. “We don’t even have your cell phone number.” Linda knew they did, however, because they had once called her on her phone.
First, the good news: “Your delivery is still coming at the correct time.”
Well, great, but why was the text message wrong? After a lot of waiting and conferring with multiple people, we got the answer: “We sent them out with the wrong times on purpose because otherwise you won’t call so we won’t know the message was received.”
You’re kidding, right? This is the way you test?
We’ve all got to remember that the most important reason to test anything is to serve your customers better. If you’re annoying your customers in the hopes of building a better relationship, stop testing now and start thinking about what you should really be doing.