ETD: 967 Can You Feel the “Love”?; Broadband; The Future of Luxury Retailing

[E-Tailer's Digest]

E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the  Retailer
  Issue #0967      March 30, 2006
  George Matyjewicz, Moderator         mailto:georgem at gapent.com
  Published by:  GAP Enterprises, Ltd.  http://www.etailersdigest.com
----------------------------------------------------------------

     CONTENTS
  [1]  Greetings
  [2]  Can You Feel the “Love”?
  [3]  Broadband
  [4]  The Future of Luxury Retailing

---------------------------------------------------------------
  [1]  Greetings.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All:

Maria Weiskott, Editor In Chief and Matthew 
Kalash, Managing Editor of Gifts & Dec Direct 
offer some excellent advice on getting customers 
to love you.  They also publish an excellent e-zine for Gifts & Dec magazine.

I had some discussions with a list member on 
broadband and decided to check out speeds.  Check it out for yourself.

Pam Danziger was a panelist at the NRF conference 
in January and has some excellent feedback.  She has also published a new book.

Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.

Sincerely


George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com

----------------------------------------------------------------
  [2]  Can You Feel the “Love”?
----------------------------------------------------------------
Do your customers love you? The kind of love that 
inspires spontaneous thank-you letters and 
recommendations? No? If you suspect your 
customers aren't feeling the love, Jeanne Bliss 
says you've got a lot of work to do.

“Customers who don't absolutely adore you are 
more detrimental to your business than those who 
belong to your competitors,” says Bliss, author 
of Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip 
Service to Passionate Action (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley 
Imprint, $27.95). “The latter might give you a 
chance in the future, but the former have already 
tried you and found you lacking. If you don't 
enthrall your customers — and make them believe 
you respect them — you'll lose them. The good 
news is you can make them love you. It just takes 
a hefty dose of commitment, energy and old-fashioned elbow grease.”

Bliss offers these tips for getting the lovefest started.

o  Eliminate the customer obstacle course. If you 
ask customers, they'll say that figuring out who 
to talk to and how to get service is too 
complicated and just plain out of whack in most 
stores. Make it clear for them how they can do 
business with you, and do it in a way that's actually beneficial to them.

o  Stop customer hot potato. Whoever speaks to 
the customer first should “own” that customer. 
Nothing sends a signal of disrespect faster than 
an impatient salesperson trying to pass a 
customer off to someone who can “better help with their problem." Yeah, right.

o  Give customers a choice. Don't bind your 
customers into the false choice of allowing them 
to “opt out.” Let them know up front that they 
can decide to get emails or offers from you — but give them the choice.

o  Consolidate phone numbers. Even in this 
advanced age of telephony, companies still have a 
labyrinth of numbers customers need to navigate 
to talk to someone. Get people together to 
skinny-down this list and then let customers know about it.

o  FIX (really) the top 10 issues bugging 
customers. Retailers have created an overactive 
customer feedback muscle by over-surveying 
market, asking (ever so thoughtfully) “How can we 
improve?” But customers tell us what to do and we 
Don't move on the information. Any retailer can 
probably recite the biggest issues by heart. Do 
something about them. Customers read the lack of 
action as lack of concern, and certainly lack of respect.

o When you make a mistake, right the wrong. If 
you've got egg on your face, for whatever reason, 
admit it. Then right the wrong. There's nothing 
more frustrating to customers than a company that 
screws up and is either clueless about it or won't admit that they faltered.

"Customers vote with their feet,” says Bliss. 
“They decide if they'll stay or leave based on 
their perception of how much we value them and how we treat them."


Maria Weiskott, Editor In Chief
Matthew Kalash, Managing Editor
Gifts & Dec Direct
www.GiftsandDec.com.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  [3]  Broadband
----------------------------------------------------------------
This week I have been communicating with a list 
member on broadband speeds.  The questions was 
which is faster - DSL or Cable?

We are both in NJ - me in the NYC metro area 
(Clifton), and he in the Western part of the 
state.  He just switched to Comcast cable and is 
getting speeds of 6 megabits per second, whereas 
his old DSL was 1.5 megabits per second.   He was 
paying $37 a month (Verizon DSL)  and is 
now  paying  $20 for 6 months and after it will be $41.

So, I checked the speeds on mine at 
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/  and I am getting:

Communications 3.4 megabits per second
Storage 419 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 2.4 seconds
Subjective rating Awesome

Average in NJ is 3.09 megabits per second.  A T1 is 1.54.

What are you using and what speeds do you get?

George

----------------------------------------------------------------
  [4]  The Future of Luxury Retailing
----------------------------------------------------------------
This January I had the pleasure of moderating a 
panel on luxury at the National Retail Federation 
Convention & Expo 2006.  Called “What’s Next — 
Prospects for the Future of Luxury Retailing,” I 
presented the year-end results from Unity 
Marketing’s quarterly Luxury Tracking Study and 
had a chance to ask some questions of an expert 
panel of luxury marketers.  Joining me on the podium January 15 were:

o  Kimberly Grabel, vice president of marketing, 
Saks Fifth Avenue —  ““When everything is luxury, 
it tells us luxury has lost its meaning.  They’re 
looking for what we call a high performance experience.”

o  Kimberley Grayson, senior vice president 
marketing, Aerosoles —  “We’re not high end 
luxury.  We’re not status symbol luxury.  But we 
are luxurious in what we provide the customer
 
Our luxury comes in the form of shoes that look great and feel great.”

o  Ed McQuigg, group vice president marketing, 
Richemont — “We are European luxury goods 
companies that specialize in hard goods and we 
are a status-driven company.  We tend to make 
products that are a statement.  For our high end 
customers who buy a six or seven figure piece of jewelry, that’s a statement.”

The questions we addressed included:

o   What does the end of conspicuous consumption 
means for the future of the luxury market?

o  How does luxury for the masses and classes impact  luxury retailing?

o  What happens to luxury when the bottom of the market moves up?

o  How has the rise of the internet impacted in luxury retailing?

o  How can luxury retailers respond to the two 
primary generations of affluence:  GenXers and Boomers?

o  Globalization and the international luxury 
market:  How does luxury different across cultures?

We filled the auditorium that cold Sunday morning 
and everyone who attended found the session both 
informative and provocative.  It was because the 
insights presented at this session were so 
valuable that I wanted to share them with 
you.  So this double issue of the newsletter is 
devoted to highlights from that informative session.

To learn more from the session, visit 
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/unity_shop/shopping_cart.php 
to order the latest issue of 
Luxury  Business:  The Luxury Marketer’s Report, 
along with the next six issues.

Learn How to Create the Ultimate Consumer Shopping Experience

Meanwhile, I have just completed my third book, 
entitled Shopping:  Why We Love It and How 
Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer 
Experience, to be published by Dearborn Trade 
Publishing Fall 2006.  This book continues my 
exploration of the luxury market, but with a 
slightly different twist: affluent people who 
love to shop.  It combines in-depth research 
among affluent shoppers, along with interviews of 
retailers who are on the cutting edge of the 
experiential retail trend with stores that offer 
an extraordinary shopping experience — what I call, ‘shops that pop.’

In the new book I have taken the research and 
turned it into actionable strategies for 
retailers, both large and small, to create an 
ultimate shopping experience in their store.  I 
hope you will all read it, love it and recommend 
it to all your colleagues as a ‘must read’ for 
anyone involved in retailing or consumer marketing.

If you can't wait for Shopping’s publication, I 
am incorporating more of the shopping insights 
into my new speeches.  So if you'd like to get an 
early preview of the book in the form of a speech 
for your senior executive team, just give us a call at 717-336-1600.

Pam Danziger,
President
Unity Marketing
717-336-1600

----------------------------------------------------------------
  Links to follow
----------------------------------------------------------------
GAP Enterprises, Ltd.		http://www.gapent.com/
E-Tailer's Digest              		http://www.etailersdigest.com
Interim Help			http://interimhelp.com
Sophisticated Me		http://sophisticatedme.com/
Marketing Your Web 		http://www.gapent.com/myweb/
Automated Press Releases      	http://www.automatedpr.com