WTF? What kind of site asks this question?

What on earth does the following question have to do with providing warranty support?



What the fuck? The site in question is Ridgid Power Tools.

I've seen similar questions before on warranty apps/whatever as a form of customer profiling. It should be marked as optional though.

Nothing to do with warranty, but a great deal to do with marketing. They are trying to find out what segment(s) of the market actually purchase their tools, and with that information will develop advertising and marketing strategies to better target those segments.

I'm probably not politically correct here, but I see this attempt to gather information as harmless. Is ethnicity some big secret that people are ashamed to reveal? Is there some way that someone might take advantage of me if I bought a Ridgid pipe wrench and it became known that I have 1/8 American Indian ancestry? Probably not. (Now that I have exposed some of my ethnicity here on the internet for everybody to know about, we'll see what happens! )

I wouldn't worry about it or take it personally if I were you.

tanstaafl.

I don't take it personally, after all it's a generic form for everyone, however, I do find it offensive and rude in a general sense. I'm just plain European white and I certainly don't care who knows that, but some people might.

I left a comment in the notes section that if they wanted to conduct their marketing in this fashion, then I would have to take that into consideration when shopping for tools in the future, because they're showing me that they're not the kind of company I want to do business with. It's extremely weak from a marketing perspective to both need that type of information as well as ask for it in this fashion.

It strikes me as something only an American company would ask. I'm not even sure if it's legal for a company to ask that kind of question here in Canada.

I would say the offensive part is they ask what race you feel you best identify. How about just ask your race I am white European but I feel I best identify with Eskimo ?

This just sounds like they are trying to be too politically correct.

And yeah I have seen race on warranty cards but you don't have to pick one. They ask your income too what does that have to do with warranty support.

You may not be just one ethnicity.

Except it's not a multiple-selection question (or form).

Which is why they ask about which one you most identify with. Which was his point.

My ex was chinese by genes, but born and raised in Indonesia. She knew nothing of chinese culture or language, but Indonesians hate chinese, so she felt no association with them either. She might answer Honkey, as she mostly identified with us honkeys.

Usually she would check "other" and write in "human".