Quote:Originally Posted by greenoak
the thing i hear most is about the big variety , the big inventory,and mainly the fun of being suprised by something we got in, and the good values...


Earlier I asked whether the shopping experience is something your customers value, and apparently some of them do. Now, how unique is this "fun of being suprised" to Green Oak Antiques? Is this experience something only you are providing? Or can they drive down the street to another antique store for the same experience?

Putting together a focus group doesn't have to be highly technical nor expensive. It can be as simple as inviting a handful of customers to your facility for lunch/dinner and engaging in seemingly informal talk. The tricky part is asking the right questions. Here's where you might want to bring in a consultant to at least develop the questionnaire. If you were to conduct a handful of these, you'd have a very good idea of the direction to take, brandwise.

It would also be wise to look up those that didn't come back and find out why. An informal phone survey might even suffice. It's important to discover if they felt dissatisfied or mistreated, or just not particularly satisified or impressed, and why.

One "focus group" we conducted was to invite a particularly dissatisfied ex-customer to talk to us. Beyond just the marketing people, all of the sales people, customer service reps, etc. were also in attendance. This woman was not shy about sharing the reasons for her dissatisfaction with the company, and we all got to hear it. But the top management really did want to hear the reasons why she was unhappy.

Quote:Originally Posted by greenoak
good points on reputation....it really does matter what their perception is.. you cant really fool people...imho

so maybe this isnt something to really manipulate....but rather just try and stick to our roots????


Well, a lot of advertising is manipulation, IMO, but I don't think it needs to be. As I said before, if branding is examining how your own values align with those of your customers, then if by "sticking to our roots" means your core values, then I'd have to agree. What do you value, Ann? That's a good place to start. How do you want those values to be reflected throughout your store? Once you have a brand build around your core values and those of your customer, the next step is to communicate those core values to your employees, so that it translates down to every customer touch-point.