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RELATED POSTSCustomer Loyalty: How Loyal Are You?
“Customer loyalty” is a big buzz-term in the industry, but how important is it to “customers”? Case in point: I love Circuit City — they have a great website, the stores are nice, and the employees are usually very helpful. I feel quite differently, on the other hand, about Best Buy — the stores are impersonal, the employees indifferent, and the website clunky and difficult to use. (Although, to be fair, I did have a great night at Tommy Doyle’s in Cambridge with the BB web folks during UI9…)
That being said, I was just shopping for a new DVD player and, upon making a decision, found that BB had it for $15 less than CC. So, I bought it at BestBuy. Would I have preferred to interact with Circuit City? Definitely. But, when dealing with two known commodities (as opposed to Abe’s of Maine, for example), for me price trumps loyalty every time. What’s important to you?
Edit: The experience of picking up a product at Best Buy is quite frustrating, as you have to wait in long lines and deal with indifferent employees. Perhaps I need to up my $$$ threshold to settle for an inferior company.
March 28th, 2006 at 7:56 am
I find it interesting, from someone who is blogging about the customer experience, that price is the bottem line for you. I simply refuse to support companies with my hard earned money when there are so many other companies who provide an easier shopping experience.
I find myself being more and more brand agnostic, but loyal to a better, easier shopping experience. I think in the long run these are the companies that will float to the top. IMHO
March 28th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
at the end of it all, a purchase decision generally comes down to price — the user experience, however, lingers long after…
March 28th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
There is always a threshold of price vs. experience. Would you pay $100 for an item at a store you liked vs. $20 at another store? Assuming everything else is equal, probably not. For me, I thought $15 was the threshold for this item. After the experience, however, I probably set that threshold too low.