Blogging Your Retail Experience
One of the reasons to start a company blog now is to get ahead of the curve. Your customers are growing aware of the fact that online media gives them the ability to offer their opinions on your services to a broader area.
Services like the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Reports provide resources for the consumers to track your company's reputation, but what happens when local blogs start talking about your services?
A recent post on Digg talked about buying a computer. Four outlets, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Fry's Electronics were all mystery-shopped for the experience of buying a computer.
This is good information, but not necessarily relevant to the average customer. We don't want to know what Circuit City in Baltimore is like unless we live in Baltimore. We want to know what service is like in Ourtown, USA, complete with the name of the store manager, the difference in prices, who will negotiate, and how service is after the sale.
That ability is now live in cities across the country. Retail dealers of automobiles, mortgages, home builders, home repair, carpet, electronics, furniture - even restaurants and bars are now faced with the looming prospect of detailed information about their sales process and staff being made available specifically to their customer base.
We're not talking about a lone individual angry at a perceived slight who jumps on an internet chat board and mouths off. We're talking about educated bloggers who have built up traffic, who have built an audience, and when they write on your company, the author and their credibility are already established.
That should be a terrifying thought to a lot of businesses, but the news is not all bad. A company that starts a blog now at least has a sense of what is being said, and can learn to respond, perhaps even fixing problems before they become public relations nightmare.
Currently, only national brands face these kinds of issues. Soon, the general public, is going to wake up to the power of transparency. What companies will be ready to face the onslaught?
Retail blogging examples:
Photo Shop Bait and Switch
Apple Store Visit
Car Salesman Tells All.
Buying A House
Services like the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Reports provide resources for the consumers to track your company's reputation, but what happens when local blogs start talking about your services?
A recent post on Digg talked about buying a computer. Four outlets, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Fry's Electronics were all mystery-shopped for the experience of buying a computer.
This is good information, but not necessarily relevant to the average customer. We don't want to know what Circuit City in Baltimore is like unless we live in Baltimore. We want to know what service is like in Ourtown, USA, complete with the name of the store manager, the difference in prices, who will negotiate, and how service is after the sale.
That ability is now live in cities across the country. Retail dealers of automobiles, mortgages, home builders, home repair, carpet, electronics, furniture - even restaurants and bars are now faced with the looming prospect of detailed information about their sales process and staff being made available specifically to their customer base.
We're not talking about a lone individual angry at a perceived slight who jumps on an internet chat board and mouths off. We're talking about educated bloggers who have built up traffic, who have built an audience, and when they write on your company, the author and their credibility are already established.
That should be a terrifying thought to a lot of businesses, but the news is not all bad. A company that starts a blog now at least has a sense of what is being said, and can learn to respond, perhaps even fixing problems before they become public relations nightmare.
Currently, only national brands face these kinds of issues. Soon, the general public, is going to wake up to the power of transparency. What companies will be ready to face the onslaught?
Retail blogging examples:
Photo Shop Bait and Switch
Apple Store Visit
Car Salesman Tells All.
Buying A House
posted by franki durbin @ 9:11 AM PERMALINK
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