The Brand Man Speaks

Online shopping's biggest weakness: Customer Service. Case Study of Popularglasses.com

As more and more people shop online for price, convenience and a variety of offerings, more and more people find online customer service a major weak-point in the experience. A few online retailers like Zappos and Amazon.com have worked to provide exemplary customer service but unfortunately the vast majority of online vendors have not.

My personal case in point today is with the (attempted) purchase of eyeglasses online. I found most of the companies had good prices but also had poor customer service reps (if you could not complete your order without help). Their weaknesses included lack of product knowledge, arrogance, ineptness, and most importantly inability to determine inventory.

The worst experience I have had to date is with a company that calls itself popularglasses.com. Prescription eyeglass purchases are not cheap so I do make it a habit of calling the company to ensure the product is in stock or at least readily available, (even if the website says it is, that isn't the truth the majority of the time). An initial call to their toll-free number yielded a sales agent who told me that the size and style product I wanted was in stock but she would need confirmation from the warehouse which colors were available. Promises to return my call later that day were broken.

The situation repeated itself over the course of 6 days each time I was told they were "waiting" for confirmation from their warehouse located in the same city (Brooklyn, NY). I was also told that they could only get feedback via email and it could take 24 hours. Finally today after NEVER receiving one return call, I called one more time to be told they had never heard back from their own warehouse and it was now assumed they didn't have the item I wanted to purchase in stock. 6 days it took to get this information from an ONLINE retailer. Even brick and mortar retailers could get you a faster answer for sure.

Now part of the problem I assume is that many of the online retailers (certainly not all) likely do NOT really have any inventory or keep it relatively light and order from their supplier as soon as they get your order (and payment). This keeps their costs down (don't have to buy inventory until needed and already paid for by the customer and keeps rent low by not needing major warehouse space) but it also can lead to situations like mine in which they promise to have something available but they really don't. The killer is they don't seem to mind annoying you, the customer and potentially losing a sale now and forever in the future.

What surprises me most about today's online retailers (or any retailer for that matter) is that they don't consider the impact of social media and the internet overall ( the same tool they are using to be in business can contribute to their downfall). Unhappy customers spread the word online in an instant via blogs, facebook or twitter and a company NOT paying attention can be hurt financially while asleep at the switch.

When I pressed popularglasses.com's sales agent today (I will not use her name) to talk to a supervisor or even the company President she put me on hold and not surprisingly came back on the line telling me NO ONE was available to speak with me but I could email their general mailbox if I wanted to leave my opinion about my experience. When I pressed to speak to someone in authority she disconnected me. I did her one better. I wrote this blog and it will be tweeted and facebooked effortlessly.

A lesson for all retailers today. Pay better attention to your customers. The economy has not recovered (and may not for some time) so any business person needs to understand they can't afford to lose a viable customer due to stupidity, arrogance and ineptitude if they want to be in business for the long term.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

 

Crisco sells extra virgin olive oil. Anyone else but me see a brand problem?

Today while I was perusing the Sunday newspaper, ( yes I still read a hard copy with my coffee--a tradition I will not give up to read the paper on my iPad), I was going through the grocery coupons and came upon one for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. No big deal you say.

Well, maybe it's my age, but the brand being promoted is Crisco Extra Virgin Olive Oil and I do have a problem with that. To me, from a branding point of view, the brand name Crisco will always be associated with lard...white colored fat cooking stuff used I suppose instead of butter or shortenings in all kinds of recipes. The stuff was always questionable in terms of nutritional and health values. So seeing that brand on "healthy" olive oil just doesn't work for me.

You may say the products are sort of in the same category which to some extent is true. People cook with olive oil instead of lard or butter these days because of the health factor. I just can't get beyond the brand ID. I wouldn't buy olive oil from Crisco. The same way I found Dannon water brand to be a conflict when it was introduced after years of exposure to the opaque thick creamy texture of Dannon Yogurt. For me the two didn't mix.

As I have written here many times, it is very important that the use of existing brand names makes sense when used with other types of products. The core brand idea must remain intact. A yogurt brand selling water doesn't make brand sense to me and after a major marketing effort to promote Dannon water you rarely see it around these days, (no wonder why).

As for Crisco Extra Virgin Olive Oil, I have the same issue and wonder how long it will be around. The only saving grace for Crisco could be that young(er) people know little about the original Crisco brand (which is rarely advertised anymore) and may not carry the brand baggage to the use of Crisco with an olive oil brand.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

The risk or reward facing many luxury brands: do second tier brands dilute high end ones?

As the age of aspirational marketing developed into high gear in the 90s, luxury brands of all kinds looked to expand their presence by launching younger less expensive branded products to increase profits and to give consumers a pathway to the top as their incomes grew.

From Mercedes Benz to Dolce and Gabbana and Prada, makers of luxury goods decided the risk to the top tier brand was relatively low with the introduction of cheaper yet sportier versions of the most expensive products. For Mercedes the success of the small "C" Class sedan for less than $30,000 helped radically increase the brands profits and influence without significantly damaging consumer interest in their over $100,000 models.

Dolce and Gabbana, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and many more did the same. They created sub-branded products "attached" the the high end name and sold them for much less. Ralph Lauren developed an entire world of sub-brands with all kinds of names at all kinds of price points probably more successfully than any other luxury manufacturer.

However, in recent times, some of the luxury brands have decided that their high end consumers (as a result of the recession) wanted more distinction for their money and were turning to brands that did NOT have a collection of lower price products associated with their high end. Some experts have even expressed the fact that brands with multi-tiered sub-brands have "annoyed" and "upset" the true luxury brand consumer and that it was important to retrench.

One such example is Dolce and Gabbana, the luxury apparel label has for many years also produced D & G, a younger oriented lower priced line. The company has announced that it will discontinue the D & G line and only focus on their top end. One reason is that for many consumers other than price they saw the brand as one despite the slight difference in brand ID and paying $300 vs. $3000 allowed them to buy into the Dolce style for much less. The other may be getting celebrities back to brands that lost them when they launched the lower level lines.

The secondary lines were a boon to retailers like Bloomingdales that helped build profits in designer departments and created that stepping stone with consumer's rising affluence to the top tier labels, keeping the consumer more loyal to the store and more likely to buy other items at the retailer.

The retrenchment may be costly to brick and mortar retailers as the elimination of upscale but not too pricey brands will leave a noticeable gap in product selection especially for department type stores.

It will be interesting to see how many other brands like Dolce will scale back and go strictly for high end style price and glamour.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Tracking coffee drinker loyalty; McDonald's coffee consumers most loyal

A recent study conducted by a relative new market research firm, CustomersDNA, tracked coffee drinkers loyalty among the top coffee shop style brands; Starbucks, McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts.

Not surprisingly to me, McDonalds coffee buyers were most loyal. It is unclear whether it was for taste or price, I would suspect both since in my personal opinion Starbucks coffee is just too bitter most of the time and more expensive.

15,000 customers were studied with results indicating that Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts' customers were significantly more likely to "roam", (try other brands) than McDonalds. 53% who patronize those brands buy at other fast food retailers.

The reason the subject is important is the out of home coffee drinking market is not growing and the top brands are now vying primarily for market share; essentially looking for ways to steal from each other.

All the top companies now have loyalty programs in place but it is unclear whether those programs are indeed succeeding in creating notable loyalty.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

 

McJob to get brand overhaul. Can McDonald's reinvent its low-brow employment image?

McDonald's is making a big PR splash with its intended effort to re-brand its employment image. The company which employs thousands of low paid personnel world-wide feels it is important that McJob be upgraded so that it does not appear flipping burgers is a dead-end career.

Although I respect McDonald's effort to improve the brand image of its employees, the truth is it will be challenging to change a brand identity that has been so engrained into American culture, paradied on late night television and in movies for decades. More importantly, the sheer numbers of jobs they do offer are at the low end and ultimately only a small percentage of people get beyond the hourly wage position.

Additionally, with cost and competitive pressures to keep their very popular low price menus including the $1 menu from being eliminated or price increased, it will be hard for the company to raise wages at the company and increase the number of middle-level positions without impacting sales and profitability which remains king in this country, (primary due to Wall Street's influence).

The PR value of their announcement is worth millions, maybe more than the cost of the recruitment campaign which will bring down cost per hire dramatically. That was a smart move and one that will also likely tweak sales upwards a bit as well.

This will be an interesting brand story to follow once the hype has died down.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli