I’m going to give you a scene, then ask you to tell me whether it was from a hidden-camera comedy program or modern corporate America:
A shopper in the parking lot of a big-box retailer looks at the price of a product on her phone, a reasonable $69.99. As she walks into the store, however, the price shown on the app jumps to $99.99. When she walks back out, it reverts to $69.99. Bewildered, she shakes her head and gets back into her car.
Cue laugh track.
This has to be a cheap gag, right? Wrong. Target recently came under fire for doing exactly what I just described. When questioned, they replied that one was the online price, the other was the in-store price, then defended themselves by saying they would price-match if asked. Increasingly, it feels as if American consumers are being treated as unwilling victims in a cosmic dark comedy rather than as integral parts of the success of any business.
This isn’t just limited to multinational corporations, either. On my way to get my car washed, I stopped at a store to return purchases for my wife. While I was at it, I thought I’d get change for a $10 bill so I could tip the car wash workers. The clerk processed my return, putting a credit on my VISA card, but then refused to change my $10, saying the register was locked, and she’d need a supervisor to open it
Similarly, why do airlines charge exorbitant fees to change the date on a ticket? I recently changed the return date on a ticket from five weeks out to six weeks out. Same flight, same class, same seat, a week later. No change in the cost of the ticket, but a $200 charge to process the revision. And this was a first-class ticket!
Shopping at my drug store feels like a shell game. There’s always something on sale, marked down from a price higher than I would pay elsewhere, but it’s up to me to weed through hundreds of sale items to find out if what I need, at that moment, is one of them. And typically, if it’s not on sale now, it will be the next time I’m in the store, or the time after that. In fact, it usually feels like my item goes on sale the week AFTER I buy it, leaving me feeling that I’ve again been taken advantage of. In addition to ever-changing sale prices, there are discounts printed on the register receipt that hawk other bargains. If I did a half hour of research before each trip to the store, no doubt I could save money. But there’s the rub. I don’t want to get sucked into a complicated transaction every time I need something. I just want a tube of toothpaste at a fair price, without feeling that I’m getting gamed at every turn.
These anecdotes — and I’m sure you have many of your own — are part of a worrying trend: “profit maximization” at the expense of every other part of a business. In the first case, “We’ll treat you fairly, if you catch us abusing you”; in the second, “Why should we do you a favor?”; in the third, “We’ve got you now, and here’s our chance to pick your pocket”; and in the fourth, “Our prices are great, if you’re smart enough and have enough time to figure them out”.
If you’re familiar with my work, you know that I believe profit maximization is a short-sighted objective. It seems to me that the best long-term strategy in any business is to turn our customers into raving fans, people who trust us to treat them fairly and see consistent evidence that we do so. Albert Einstein said that “not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”. You can’t count trust, but I’m sure it’s more valuable than quarterly earnings per share!
You probably share my exasperation, but is this the way you treat your customers? Put yourself in their shoes and ask how they feel about doing business with you. If they’re not consistently delighted, is it because they feel you’re taking advantage of them? And if so, what are you going to do about it?
