In today’s age, customer service has become a oxymoron, or a cliché at best. I recently had a bad customer experience at the Fry’s Electronics that made me think about just how right the customer actually is. On recent trip to Fry’s they employed a bait and switch on a in store sale. This had been the second consecutive time this had happened and I asked the casher to see the manager. After going from the Department Manager to store Manager to Customer Service Manager I finally had it. As a customer I thought I was right, they incorrectly and misleadingly promoted a big sale and placed fliers on half an aisle and they were not owing up to their mistake. I demanded to file a complaint, but only after I told him that this was the second time I fell victim to this sort of bait and switch tactic and that I was personally unsatisfied with the service I was getting did he ask me to put my name and number in a little, white, and meaningless piece of paper, which he undoubtedly threw away after I left the store. But before I left the store, and the additional $200 worth of merchandise I was going to buy, I informed him, and half the store that they had just lost a $100,000 customer.
You might be wondering how I figure I am a $100,000 customer if at I had a little over $200 worth of merchandise. We’ll, I’ve been a customer of Fry’s for over ten years. I bought my first desktop there, paid over $2,400 in cash for it too. Since then I have bought other desktops, laptops, video, SLR, and point and click cameras, books, movies, and a ton of other electronic gadgets and accessories. If you add it all together, I’ve been a loyal customer until now.
In any given year, you may spend up to $5,000 dollars in your local grocery store, 20 years of that makes you a $100,000 customer. Take Amazon for example, how long would it take you to be a $100,000 Amazon customer? Not long, if you are a happy customer. Take apple for example, if you are like me you are reading this on your third or forth mac computer and you own and have given an iPod for just about every gift occasion. A satisfied customer has no qualms about spending on reliable service and quality goods, even at a premium.
The retail business is a tough business. Most retailers have a razor thin profit margin of 1-3 percent, and they just can’t afford to mistreat their customer in a rude, unprofessional, deceiving, unethical fashion. When Amazon often has better deals on just about everything, with free premium shipping, how is Fry’s going to differentiate and win back customers like myself?
In the New York Times best seller The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch tells the story of the $100,000 salt and pepper shaker. The story is about how when, as a child, the authors parents took the whole family to Disney World in Orlando for the first time the author and his kid sister bought a souvenir salt and pepper shaker for their parents. In the excitement, the salt and pepper shaker fell and broke minutes after purchasing it. As any kid would, they were upset to the point of attracting the attention of a fellow guest who suggested for them to ask the casher for it to be replaced. They did and to their surprised the got a new shaker set and apologies for not wrapping it correctly. The salt and pepper shaker that they had bought was not worth $100,000, it was worth no more than $10 dollars. But on learning about this, and having the family vacation of their lives, the authors family gave Disney World over $100,000 in business over the years. The authors father in his capacity as a volunteer in English as Second Language organized student trips to Disney World well worth $100,000.
You are a $100,000 customer, so demand $100,000 customer service. Take back and take control your purchasing power.
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