Recently I booked a hotel with La Quinta hotels for a business trip I have planned and a part of doing that I agreed to receive emails with promotions. I started getting those promotions recently.

 

It is quite jarring to receive their emails!

The email comes from "La Quinta Returns" as the name of the email sender. Every single time I see their email pop up in my inbox I think "No, I didn't cancel my reservation!" and I panic just a little bit. Where will I stay when I get off the plane if my reservation is not waiting for me!

 

If they are trying to drive traffic to their website it works.

 

The first time I got their email, I quickly looked up my reservation information, went to the website and saw that yes indeed I have a reservation still. Wheu!

 

A week later, the second email and I felt that familiar nervousness come up but I thought wait a second... and remembered what happened last time.

 

Now I just laugh. I get these emails that are basically telling me that I should cancel my reservation, and I don't even have to open the email! It became apparent that they mean "return" in the sense of "come back". But, to me the customer, "Return" means to take back and get a refund.

 

Word magic. It is important to understand the words that mean something to your customers and speak to them in their own language.