My wife is a multichannel shopper. She checks out goods on Web sites, orders from catalogs, pores over direct mail advertising and buys in stores. But there’s one multichannel merchant, a jeweler, that can forget about seeing the color of her money.
The reason? A pair of easily avoidable marketing miscues.
Attracted to an item in the marketer’s mailed flier, my wife sought to examine it “for real” at a store. It was not in stock. Miscue No. 1.
When my wife asked to have the item sent to the store, a clerk (obviously not a salesperson) informed her that she would have to pay for the merchandise in advance, in effect, purchasing it sight unseen. Miscue No. 2.
Multichannel marketing can’t deliver the synergies it promises if the customer is annoyed at any of the touch points. Notwithstanding the complexities – and opportunities – of modern marketing, it still works best when we “Give the lady what she wants!”
Bernard Weiss, Principal, The Business Advisory Group, Simsbury, CT
