Although it’s hard to say Southern California has a rainy season, what little rain we did have earlier this year included a couple of pretty good downpours. In the midst of one of them, I stopped by Kragen Auto Parts store to buy new windshield wiper inserts for my car. What I saw was an amazing example of customer service. As I pulled into their parking lot, I saw a half dozen or so Kragen employees helping customers replace their wiper blade inserts. Now, a set of wiper blade inserts usually costs under $10.00. It’s not a huge profit center for a store like Kragen. But the good will that was being made in that parking lot was priceless.
Good Will vs. Media Dollars. Hmmmm…. So, I thought to myself, how can a business like Kragen take this concept and make it a home run online brand marketing success?
What if they had some local customers following them on Twitter and, when it started raining, they sent out a message offering FREE wiper blade inserts to the first 100 visitors. Do you think they’d have a huge line at the door? Marketing history says they would.
But wait, how can a store give out 100 sets of wiper blade inserts and justify the expense? At $10 a set that could add up to $1,000 in product! Yup. It sure could. But how much did it cost in media expenditures to get 100 people in the door? How much would it cost if they tried doing this on TV, or some other form of traditional media? And how could the message be distributed in such a timely manner, and thanks to Twitter, shared so quickly with friends, coworkers, family and other miscellaneous Twitter followers who get the offer re-tweeted to them? How much good will could be created by helping customers out, free of charge, at a time when they needed something pertinent to their immediate safety?
What’s the biggest challenge with this type of new marketing concept? Changing marketers ways of thinking. Getting out of the old mindset that you spend money on the media, and the creative, not on good will. That’s old thinking. And it’s really, really expensive thinking. Why not take just a tiny piece of all that money to be saved from expensive traditional media buys and instead use it to be helpful. Yes, even use it to give something away. With today’s consumer, being helpful can pay off ten-fold. Seeing those Kragen guys standing out in the pouring rain smiling and helping customers was enough to earn my loyalty.
By the way, did I happen to mention that almost every customer in the parking lot that day was holding a Kragen bag with other things they had purchased?
OP: I might be daff (lord knows I have been told lol) but you made absolutely no sense…
In your opinion is retail still affected by recession? December sale looked good, however it seems there is cautious optimism with many retail companies in the throes of recession. Wal-Mart has just fired close to 14,000 employees! What is your opinion?
thanks !! very helpful post!
Wonderful piece of writing! This will guide a lot of people find out more about this subject. Are you keen to include things like video clips coupled with these? It would surely help out. Your explanation was spot on and because of you; I will not have to explain everything to my buddies. I can simply point them in this article!
I think it is still affected due to people’s cautiousness, and I doubt it will return to the excessive spending of the previous years for a long time. But that’s ok. We can’t survive in America just by consumerism. These tough times will force bigger changes, hopefully for the better, on our economy. Maybe we can actually become an export country again!