Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Search for Black Hawk Down Team Saber

My children are big into video games. They discovered online gaming after we moved to southern Florida. Forced indoors by the incredible heat, they hooked up the PS2 and discovered a whole new world of gaming.

Well, one of their favorite video game is Black Hawk Down. They've made a lot of online friends through playing the game over the summer. Well, EA games released a new version of Black Hawk Down and my daughter and older son were both DYING to get it.

Read more about my daughter's search for the video game and, more importantly from a business owner's stand point, how a 17 year old girl redeemed a nationwide chain's reputation.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Customer Service and Surveys

Technology is a wonderful thing. It allows you, as a business owner, to purchase software that actually tries to simulate an actual relationship with your customers. It’s called CRM which is short for Customer Relationship Marketing.

Chris Baggot tells of an experience he had with a business who has bought into the “CRM” model. OUTSTANDING POST!

Shortly after reading this post, my son relayed another CRM story.

In case you've been living without electricity for the past three months, there are two new gaming consoles which have just hit store shelves in time for Christmas: the Sony Play Station 3 and the Nintendo Wii (pronounced we).

Many, many avid gamers put down deposits months ago to secure their game system. One retailer which accepted such deposits was GameStop. In order to reserve one of the highly treasured systems, customers were required to provide contact information. The thought was that when the game system was in, that Gamestop would use that information to contact said consumer.

Well, one of my son's friends put his name on the list. That's when the fun began. My son was highly entertained by his conversations with his friend during the past week. It seems Gamestop was calling his friend frequently, though not to tell him that his treasured system had arrived. Instead, Gamestop was calling to ask him to participate in a customer satisfaction survey. After the third such call, my son's friend became enraged, hurling curse words at his unsuspecting tormentor.

What's ironic is that their relentless pursuit of his opinion actually served to destroy the fledgling relationship with the gaming retailer.

Remember, this is a teen age boy who is REALLY into gaming. What could have been an opportunity to have this young lad singing Gamestop's praises turned into a story MY son has yet to tire of telling. The phone would ring; his friend would see Gamestop on the caller id, pick up the phone and then begin cursing a blue streak at yet another survey.

The advertising agency owner for which I worked two decades ago used to preach that a satisfied customer will tell three people. A dissatisfied customer will tell twelve. Remember, this is during the days BEFORE the internet and blogs.

Even with my kids begging for the hottest consoles this Christmas and said consoles bringing two to three times their retail price on ebay.com, I’m still not convinced it would have been worth enduring call after telemarketing call to secure the system on a pre-order basis.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Preparing for Black Friday

Black Friday is what US retailers call the day after Thanksgiving, a day when eager shoppers flood America's retail centers and begin the buying frenzy for the holiday formerly known as Christmas.

Walmart has announced that they are aggressively slashing prices for the 2006 Holiday Season. This is actually GREAT PR (Public Relations not Page Rank) for a retailer whose slogan is "Low Prices... Always Low Prices," for those who pay attention to what Walmart does, it's once again positively bewildering.

In my Blog, Beyond Niche Marketing,I noted that Walmart appears to be chasing the dollars of more affluent shoppers. If you look at their ads, they definitely scream "upscale consumer" through the visual elements. Television and print have both taken on an "upscale" theme yet Walmart follows this upscale shift with the announcement of even LOWER prices throughout the store.

Is it just me, or is Walmart losing it's way?