In my large collection of books, I’ve got a great one called “The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual.”
It was written by four authors who brilliantly foresaw a time in which companies would have to change the way they dealt with the public, because the public was becoming more connected, and audiences were sharing their voices, thoughts, and experiences with each other.
It’s a fascinating read. The authors wrote 95 short theses which were instructions to businesses to take heed of the way that the marketplace was changing in the Internet age.
With many of the events that transpired this week at Dominicks, from the store coupons scanning at .01 instead of face value, to the Just For U offers “locked-in lie” to the rampant stories of bad customer service on their Facebook page, to the change in acceptance of expired coupons without warning, I was reminded of the principles discussed in “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” So I pulled it off the shelf and perused it again tonight. See if any of these statements resonate with you:
The End Of Business As Usual.
6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors.
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.
18. Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.
19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.
20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.
76. We’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we’d be willing to pay for. Got a minute?
77. You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.
78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.
83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.
85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn’t have such a tight rein on “your people” maybe they’d be among the people we’d turn to.
88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?
95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.
What’s most remarkable about “The Cluetrain Manifesto” is that it was written in 1999. The words “blog,” “Facebook,” and “Twitter” don’t appear anywhere in this book, because none of them existed yet. But the book recognized the power that consumers were increasingly going to hold online — how rapidly they could share information with each other, and how much the value the human voice held. The book denounces corporate-speak, because in a connected world, customers recognize it for the empty rhetoric that it is.
In a world where we can talk to each other and receive genuine, timely answers, we also want to be able to talk to companies and feel that we’re talking to someone who cares about our questions and issues.
Which brings us to Dominick’s Facebook page. Facebook is the largest social network in the world. If a company creates a Facebook presence, it’s a great tool to converse with the public — not talk “at” them. And over the last week or two, apparently out of sheer frustration from not receiving satisfactory information from Dominick.com via email, shoppers have taken to Dominick’s Facebook page to vent, cry out, and look for answers.
What are customers getting in response from Dominick’s?
To add insult to injury, Dominick’s has been deleting many posts that are critical of them. (They denied this earlier this week, saying a spam filter was preventing posts from appearing, but I have screenshots of their Facebook page over the past few days that prove posts are being removed, often hours after they first appeared.) Instead of addressing issues, it’s easier to remove them from public view. The few posts praising Dominick’s immediately get responses from the Dominick’s Facebook poster thanking them for their wonderful feedback:
People are getting angry. As one poster wrote, “It’s all part of a carefully orchestrated, very precise, highly detailed business plan experiment to see how many customer-alienating policies can be implemented before NO more customers walk through the doors.”
Does Dominick’s realize that they are blowing their biggest opportunity to TALK to their shoppers, the people who spend money in their stores, about what is wrong at the store level? Companies pay thousands of dollars to analysts to put together focus groups and secret-shopper data… here, customers are providing that feedback free of charge.
I have been trying for over a year now to get the in-person, face to face meeting with Dominick’s corporate that I was promised back in January 2010 (!) to discuss these issues and more on behalf of all of the shoppers that Dominick’s asked me to open a dialog with to discuss the problems in their stores.
Is anyone at Dominick’s listening? Because we certainly are paying attention to what other shoppers are saying:
Anyone interested in the power of social networking and consumers’ voices would enjoy another book that I’m a big fan of, “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World:”
Consumer generated media is a force to be reckoned with. Since consumers trust other consumers above companies or brands, a company’s success depends on its credibility and its ability to gain the trust and support of Web-savvy, outspoken and influential customers.…Emphasizes the need for companies to be attentive to consumers since they no longer control them. Noting that sooner or later every company will get into trouble… troubleshooting tips include knowing who are the company’s key influencers, using the corporate blog as a rapid-response vehicle, and what to do when a simple apology is not enough to placate irate customers… Our online world has turned credibility into a company’s most important asset.
The book is filled with real-life examples of how a single person’s blog post, YouTube video, or online product review cost corporations thousands to millions of dollars in lost revenue.
What happens when thousands post that they’re upset?
kel12347 says
Amazing commentary, Jill. Too bad Dom’s just doesn’t like to listen.
tripletts07 says
Jill,
Thank you for being our voice regarding the issues at Dominicks. It is really sad that they do not care about us as customers. If they really want to be that way, that is their choice. I am trying to think of it this way.
* No more bags of expired coupons buried under my bed (Thinking of having a fire in the middle of my drive way to burn the old coupons while drinking my $3.50 Guiness beer that I had to go to two Dominicks because they would not sell it to me at one store.)
* No more holding my breath to see if they will let me use my coupons
* No more nasty cashiers snickering rude comments or rolling their eyes
* No more spending hours trying to load those stupid E coupons from their JUST FOR YOU site that seldomly come off properly (They must have the slowest web site.)
* No more spending time reviewing the receipts to see if prices and coupons rang up properly
* No more spending time at the customer service desk to get a refund for incorrect pricing or coupons that did not take properly (I was there 19 out of 20 of my last visits getting a refund at customer service for incorrect receipt — seriously.)
THANK YOU DOMINICKS FOR SENDING ME THE SIGNAL THAT I SHOULD SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY FAMILY THAN DEALING WITH YOUR STUPID, SILLY ISSUES.
armymom says
… we can all throw away our Zanex!!!! (:
Bernard2003 says
To the CS line in AZ – of course I got the company line about never taking expireds, since he had no clue about the Dominick’s Chicago practices.. But he also had no clue about the JFU glitches we all have been having. I pointed out ot him that we don’t load MFR Qs to our dom’s card simply because we don’t get both prints and end up losing the value of that second printed coupon (anyone else know about this? it is print limit related I guess). Anyway, seems like their CS center is clueless. I also let him know about the blowups on facebook and to send up the suggestions if he could. He was still trying to figure out how to type it all up when I ended the call.
I sure hope they learn how to compete in the Chciago market – changing their coupon policies like this without adding in some 30-60 day expired or coupon doubling policy would certianly kill their sales.
I wonder if there is a facebook page where you can DISLIKE dominick’s… I am not on their facebook page because I refuse to “like” dominicks. I am just about ready to mail them back my fresh values card as it is.
shopaholic says
I wonder if Dominick’s has a 3rd party company owning their FB page; therefore, they do not know how to handle responses to poor feedback. Granted, that does not excuse the deletions or lack of responding.
jennilooger says
You are shining light on the darkness, Jill. Thank you.
icoupon2 says
We are surely going to see a lot more of these signs at Jewel in the coming days after this latest Dominick’s fiasco:
And rightly so, Jewel is in the customer service business. Dominick’s is in the self-serving business. The two are worlds apart.
jmdetz says
I did go today since I had money on my card for the errors that had been made in the past – and that worked like it was supposed to. And they took the $15 in Register rewards that had expired Tuesday (was planning on shopping that night LOL). Todays trip went smoothly.
twinsplustwo says
I quit going to Dominicks beginning of last year. It’s been Heaven ever since! No more heart pounding, anxiousness waiting in line to see what kind of confrontation I was going to have to deal with. I’ve been going to Jewel exclusively for over a year and never have I had one single problem. It’s been so nice!
PollyS says
I am not a Dominick’s customer. I am a Safeway customer on the West Coast. I can tell you that when I started couponing I would have problems each and every time I went into Safeway. I cannot tell you the number of times I left carts full of groceries and demanded that my coupons be given back to me when the cashier didn’t even know their own policies. Once I even got into a screaming match with the store manager. When he screamed “No one gets anything for free in MY store!” my husband almost screamed back. Instead he wrote a carefully crafted email to their corporate office and we received a very nice reply + a $50 gift card. The next visit, two months later we were pleasantly surprised to meet a new store manager, younger and much wiser to the world of coupons AND customer service. Now Safeway takes catalinas and register rewards and even questionable coupons. MUCH better shopping experiences! I’d like to think my fellow local couponers and I had something to do with things getting better.
I have not signed up for J4U. It seems they are not targeting us, the couponers of the world but rather Walmart shoppers. WE know that WM doesn’t have the best prices. Just more convenience sometimes.
My Safeway would take my expired coupons IF the cashier didn’t notice they were expired. If they noticed they would not take them, even if the register didn’t beep.
So, I’m anxious to find out the explaination of thie policy change.
Thanks for your reporting Jill.
silviavm says
I love this blog article! My husband always pokes fun at my “write the company” attitude and I tell him “I expect what I give forward”. If I am nice, I expect nice in return but if I am scorn, I dish it right back! You are always so inpartial and yet forthcoming to your fellow bloggers and the stores you blog about and this article not only gets to the heart of the problem but even better it speaks to the masses ” informed consumers are to be reckoned with” and for this a thank you a ton!! Even if Doms does not listen, thanks for acknowledging my purchasing power! As a consumer, I have rights and thank you for standing up for them! I haven’t read something this good since my political debate classes in college! Gracias Jill por responder por todos nosotros con tan poquito palabra pero con tanta pasion!! (tranlation: Thank you Jill for responding for all of us with such little words but with much passion!”
Turken says
So, besides all the confusion surrounding what Dominick’s will or won’t take for coupons driving away customers, I found yesterday that the confusion may also be directly hurting their bottom line with the ones who do brave the ordeal of shopping in their stores.
Here’s what happened to us: Seeing as how there were reports that some stores are still taking expired Q’s I figured this would probably be the best time to use up some expired freebies I found last week while using the snow day to clean and organize the expireds file, as well as pick up a few of the superbowl specials and whatnot. So, I loaded up all the “Just FU” coupons and personalized prices (as a side note — I saw that particular abbreviation being tossed about this past week and think it quite aptly describes the program) and hit the store. Knowing that I had only loaded the card a couple hours earlier, I also cut out the paper super Q’s since I didn’t know if the electronic ones would be active by the time I finished shopping. Coming to the checkout, I managed to get a very nice cashier (woohoo, jackpot!) who was so frustrated with the computer system and all the store coupons showing up at $0.01 that she pushed through each and every coupon in my stack without question, manually adjusting prices every time a 0.01 coupon appeared. The final total was a fair bit lower than I expected, but this being Dominick’s I didn’t bother asking about it, since the last time I tried to “do the right thing” and figure out a low tally it only caused confusion and consternation for the cashier and CS rep.
Anyway, a postmortem analysis on the receipt at home found that I did in fact get the electronic super coupon prices from my card and didn’t need the paper super coupons. So, what happened was that the poor cashier, confused and fed up from dealing with malfunctioning store coupons all week long, just pushed everything through on the assumption that the system was broken. In retrospect, I feel kinda bad for inadvertently double-dipping on those coupons where it technically wasn’t right to do so, but then again, I think the cashier was right in that the system IS broken. Except it isn’t the computer system that is broken so much as it it the store/corporate management system that is broken and in dire need of fixing. I wasn’t intentionally trying to cheat the system, and the poor cashier certainly wasn’t trying to either, but if things are so complicated and fickle that the customers have to resort to throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks and the poor cashiers then have to use their best judgment to clean up the mess, then what hope is there for the business overall?
silviavm says
They are fighting for our freedom and for that, if Doms don’t want my expired $$ then I will give it to soldiers. I read on another website that either you can choose to send them to a specific military family or to a gerneral location overseas and they can use them to buy things in the store on the base. I will be sending them to a specific family and use one of those basic boxes that are like 14.95 and hope that they could do coupon swaps with other families if the coupons are not for things that they use. It will make me feel better and feel less anger toward DAMN DOMS!