CRM, whole view of the customer, joined up marketing, call it what you will, but it's ultimately the holy grail of most businesses.

It's simply about making life better and easier for customers. Now, I've been a customer of NatWest for close on 20 years. I don't particularly like them, they never help and every time I drop into a branch they always try to sell me something or get me to undertake an account review, "No thanks" I tell them everytime, in fact can you remember to stop asking me everytime, but it's seems they can't, or don't want to.

Like most people I use paper-free billing. It just makes life easier, so I opted in not to receive any more mail. Easy, life is all good.

Unlike the credit side of the NatWest business. Seems they just love DM and tons of it.

Now as a customer that likes paper-free, you'd think they'd have a global flag saying Email this customer, or get him when he's logged in. Not so. I've continued to receive lots of junk offering me 'amazing' deals and things that are of no us to me. How annoying.

On the bottom part of the latest letter was a statement that read if you want to stop receiving these mailings please call us. So I did. After navigating a really irritating IVR menu that wasn't really concerned with stopping mailing I spoke to an operator after 4:28m. Whilst NatWest believe my patience was appreciated, that wasn't the case with the operator who had to put me on hold whilst she found out how to opt me out of junk.

I don't intend for this to be a rant, or to tell the world that this should be done online only.. obviously that's not going to work for everyone. What I'm talking about is understand as a customer I don't like things in the post, I told you that and if you get it wrong, that's ok, just make it easy for me. I'll appreciate it.