Daily Archives: October 18, 2008

Losing a potential customer

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A few months ago, my girlfriend went into a local outdoor store, Backcountry. She was looking for a certain pair of shoes that she wanted to try on. While talking with one of the employees, she mentioned that her brother worked for REI. He stopped helping her and told her that companies like that put businesses like his out of business.

I was reminded of this story as I drove by their store. I didn’t stop to browse.

In fact, I never will again.

This employee had very valid concerns. Beth probably would have bought the shoes from her brother, saving a lot of money. REI is the 800lb gorilla for a store like that. My question is, did his reaction help out his business in any way? Making people happy means people will talk about you. Making people angry means a lot more people will talk about you.

Who hurts their business more, REI or one bad employee?

Another Amazon story

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Amazon is one of my favorite companies. Not because they do everything I want, but because they are easy to use. Their site, although a little too daunting at first glance, is actually really easy to navigate and do things.

Today, I decided to use Amazon to sell an old digital camera. I could have used Ebay, but Amazon has some perks that I really like. They have a great reputation. I don’t have to deal with all the extras of Ebay, like purchasing a picture or not. It was simple. Within 5 minutes, my item was posted on their site. Whether or not it will sell, time will only tell.

Another wiz-bang-cool thing that happens during the signup process is you get a call from Amazon. As expected, it was automated, but they called me to verify who I am, and as soon as I typed in my verification code, the web page updated. Very cool.

Buy my camera, its onloy 7 years old :)