The voice of the customer exists

Why is change so difficult, and what are we so afraid of? And why is this mentality so prevalent in Canadian retailers?

For the sake of this post we will refer to one company in particular as ‘Acme', and for the sake of context, it’s important to understand that we are talking about one of the country’s biggest retail players. With seven major brands, and close to 1000 retail locations across the country, Acme today is doing over 1 billion in revenue and trades publicly. This is no small business.

By the way…Acme is also one of the country’s only big retail players that has yet to adopt e-commerce as a transactional channel. Don’t ask why, I have been trying to figure it out for years.

This is a company that freely admits they have been un-able to properly gauge the impact e-commerce would have on their bottom line.

When in the course of making a presentation, I suggested that we examine their visitor’s interest in e-commerce, the management team at Acme decided they did not want to ask customers whether or not they would like to shop online because management was quite certain now (as opposed to over the past several years) that the feedback would be an overwhelming ‘YES’.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “If it turns out that the majority of your visitors tell you that they want to buy online, then you have your answer. Give the people what they want…no?” Seems like smart business to me.

“We’re just not ready” said a senior executive at Acme. “If we ask the question, and get back the results we think we’ll get, and don’t deliver, we will really hurt the brand”.

The reality is the voice of the customer exists even if you choose not to listen to it. Brands don’t exist on store shelves, or in television commercials. They don’t exist in print advertising or in websites or in product packaging for that matter. Brands exist in the minds of consumers. They are based on how people experience your company and your product.

Here’s the magic question;

If a tree falls in the forest…and there is nobody there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

I personally believe it does.

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