Barnes & Ignoble - Another Tragic Case of Customer Relationship Mis-management
'Tis the season.....yadda yadda yadda..... Ok well it's time to break out the wallet more than I do any time of the year. But I can't stand shopping. That's why the people on my gift list get cash or gift certificates....of the online variety. In fact the only stores I really like going to are bookstores, and typically that means Borders and/or Barnes and Noble. And Christmas time I may go a little more than usual.
So I guess you can gather from the above paragraph that I like to read. A number of people must know that because on my recent trip to Silicon Valley doing some meet and greets with companies like (in alphabetical order):
- Adobe (nice location in downtown San Jose)
- Cisco (awesome media production studios)
- Intel (nice museum by the way)
- Intuit (great campus)
- PB Wiki (conveniently located minutes from the SF airport)
- Six Apart (the perfect location two blocks from the last stop on the Caltrain in SF)
I was given two interesting books to read. Diane Davidson, Webex Community Leader, gave me a copy of Why Buy the Cow by Webex co-founder Subrah Iyar. And when I stopped by Intuit Scott Wilder, GM of their small business online communities, gave me a copy of his new book Millennial Leaders: Success Stories from Today's Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders. And yes once I read these books I'll be writing my take on them. But if that isn't enough a new bud of mine at Microsoft, Jeremy Epstein, sent me the classic Elements of Style by E.B. White. So yes, the word is out.... I like books. But I digress....boy did I digress...
So anyway let me get to the reason for the post - the tale from the dark side that is Barnes and Ignoble. So I went to B&I over the holiday weekend and looked around, and ended up picking up a Newsweek magazine. I go to the counter an plunk down my money. The cashier asks me if I had a B&N membership, and I replied the same way I have for the last two years..."Have you guys made membership free like Borders has?" And of course she said no, so I was willing to leave it at that. But the cashier had a bit of a 'tude (probably because she gets that question a lot) and tacked on "well ours is better than theirs anyway". And because I didn't feel like a return to high school and getting into a ridiculous debate, I just paid for the magazine and left.
I buy the occasional item at B&I because they sometimes have a discounted item I can't get from Borders. But I am loyal to Borders because I can be a member of their program for free, which entitles me to more discount offers than I can take advantage of. And I went there today because they just sent me a coupon for 40% off any book of my choice. And chances are I'll be getting more of those offers in the weeks to come...which makes the Borders program a lot better to me than B&I. Because I like not having to pay a fee AND give up my personal information, in order to receive some decent discount offers. But I guess my opinion doesn't count. I'm just the customer. But maybe someone should tell B&I what Sam Walton used to say about customers - The customer has all the answers....because they have all the money. They'd be wise to listen to Sam, he did know a thing or two about business.
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