The Truth behind Brand Loyalty
or How Sue got a Free Vacuum Cleaner
Brand Loyalty, it’s something every business strives for – oh to be the Coca Cola of your field, it would seem to be the ultimate goal. I would argue, however, that Coke has limited brand appeal, as successful as it is, it doesn’t have much crossover – something the Coca Cola Company must understand else why wouldn’t they market their expensive water under that brand (rather than Dasani)?
That brand is about colour, song, and marketing – as I said, a brilliant job that every business would like to achieve for themselves, but one that simply can’t work for most things. The value behind Coke (and something the company itself almost didn’t realize) was the sameness, the reliability, the nostalgic feelings it provides; people (believe they) will know exactly what it is they were buying, the same thing they bought yesterday, the same one from 10, 20, even 30 years ago. That might be exactly what a soft-drink company might want, but it doesn’t have much power for an innovative, cutting-edge software company attempting to lead the way.
Nope, Coke might be an enviable brand but other than some lessons in shooting oneself in the foot (do you remember “New Coke?”) their road cannot be followed by many, it’s far too straight. If there is a consumer brand that a software company might be able to strive to (other than the obvious software brands), it’s Sears’ Kenmore brand of household appliances.
Unlike Coke, I cannot assume that the word Kenmore has the same power and meaning around the world as it does to me and generally in North America. But, if you are in the market for a major household appliance, be it refrigerator, stove, washing machine, or any other appliance that pushes $1000 (or beyond) and you want quality, you buy Kenmore. Yep, you’ll pay more, there are less expensive ways of getting the same quality (literally) – but nobody ever got fired for buying IBM and nobody ever regretted purchasing a Kenmore (once the sticker shock is gone). Kenmore, however, doesn’t actually make anything – at least not today and I’m not sure it ever did. Sears is a retail giant and Kenmore is a retail brand, not a manufacturer.
There are, in fact, very few true manufacturers of such goods, certainly much fewer than there are brands to buy. Take freezers as an example, near Guelph Ontario was Woods’ Freezers, a true manufacturer and also a brand name itself in that limited space. According to a good friend of mine who worked there for years, the very same model of freezer was sold under a variety of brand names including Woods, Danby, and Kenmore. I picked “Danby” because it is generally found to be much less costly than the other brand names – as I said above, there are less expensive ways of getting the same quality.
And yet, I have a house full of Kenmore appliances and would not (yet) seriously consider spending big money on a Danby purchase. I don’t fault those who do purchase Danby (or other lesser known brands), particularly when they learn the truth of the manufacturing process. But as my appliances need replacing, there is an excellent chance that they will get replaced with Kenmore products. That’s Brand Loyalty of the kind an innovative software company can use!
I don’t consider myself to be an idiot, in fact were I to be honest (and I have that habit), I consider myself above the average in intelligence. Just the same, I know there are a lot of smart folks, many smarter than I, who will read this and think “what an idiot, why waste that money?” Certainly there is a piece of me that understands Sears has done very well by my practice, however I think we have done quite well by Sears as well. Much like those early IT administrators who, knowing very little about the devices they were tasked to purchase, looked to trusted experts to make sure they spent their money well, I have looked to the Kenmore brand to ensure that I don’t have a freezer full of rotten food, a nasty clothes-dryer fire, or electrocution by stove first and foremost knowing that the warranty will be honoured if / when there is a problem.
The title promised a story of a free vacuum cleaner and so it is. A few years ago or so it was time to buy a new vacuum cleaner and about all I know about that gig is that it works very similarly to purchasing a mattress. It is a scam, for the most part, it is very easy to spend 2, 3 or even 4 times more than you should or could. In such situations I start with Consumer Reports, I’ll typically find something relevant from the previous 12 months – I don’t typically let CR tell me what to buy, but I will allow it to direct me away from things and it does a good job at setting the bar for prices. And then I went to Sears and bought a vacuum of the type Sue wanted in the price range that seemed appropriate. That brand loyalty was in play.
Well, it turns out that that particular vacuum cleaner was a dog – and it appears not to have been just a lemon, a Monday morning mistake, but there were some fundamental flaws that appeared shortly after the warrantee had ended. The fancy light on the powerhead that I had decided was worth choosing this particular model over a slew of others that were nearly indistinguishable from this model had burned a hole through the plastic covering. The clips holding the thing together were fragile and were breaking one after the other and after just replacing the belt a second time in 17 months and having it fail almost immediately, Sue had had enough and was on the warpath.
Never being a shy person, Sue called Sears to complain about the POS vacuum cleaner we had paid good money for – in her own words “it’s a damn good thing they didn’t call back that day” she was furious. Turns out the CSR involved was off that day and so didn’t call back until the following day giving Sue a chance to talk to me first and we formulated a plan. It was time to test that brand loyalty, time to see if it meant anything or if we’d been duped all these years.
“Let’s just make sure they understand how many Kenmore products are here, purchased by us. Let’s remind them that many are 10+ years old today and, while all are working well (quality!) all are approaching MTBF. That brand is only as good as the last purchase, that’s that damn vacuum cleaner.”
Sue did great, she was calm and polite (a very important part of the strategy, you can be frustrated, you can be angry even, but you must be calm and polite if you want people to help you) as she explained the woes of the vacuum. “And my sister has the very same model and she has had nothing but trouble as well.” A true story but not something that the CSR could easily verify, she could verify our personal purchases however, this wasn’t just a story it was fact.
“By all rights, your warrantee has passed – you didn’t purchase the extended warrantee, I really shouldn’t do anything, but I have your account up, I see all those purchases – we want your future business. I’m going to send you a new powerhead to replace the one you have and may I suggest you purchase the extended warrantee?”
We didn’t commit to any extended warrantee but thought that the new powerhead was a fair response that was likely to not poison our consumer relationship too badly. It’d still be stained, but I’d still consider Kenmore for future purchases. A few days, perhaps a week went by and the Sears called again.
“Um, it turns out you can’t order a powerhead directly, you can only order the individual parts for one. I looked into shipping all the parts to you but that was going to end up costing more than the original vacuum.”
“Well that’s silly” says Sue
“I thought so too and so what I’m going to do is to order a new vacuum here and then take the powerhead from that and replace it with yours. I know how to work the system.”
“Well, okay thanks then, I await the call” what else could she say?
Another week goes by and another phone call – seems like it’s been about 1 month now, this back and forth exchange between Sue and this lady from Sears. “Well, best laid plans and all… how are you on orange?”
“Huh?”
“Well it seems that that particular model has been discontinued” big surprise there, “but I’m still trying to make this good and I think I have a solution, at least if you can live with an orange vacuum cleaner. We have a replacement for you, it’s very similar to your’s but – well when I say orange, I do mean orange.”
“I don’t care if its hot pink with purple polka dots as long as it works.” I doubt very much she would have been as accommodating with me had I actually brought home a hot pink with purple polka dotted vacuum cleaner, but she meant it.
“I’ll have the store call you when it arrives.”
They called about 1 hour later, we picked it up the next day (yesterday) and “Wow, this thing is way better! Even if it does look like a pumpkin.” Actually, not a pumpkin though that is likely what we will call it going forward – it’s neon-orange, it’s bright enough to hurt your eyes and it had no light. “I never liked that other version” now she tells me “this model addresses everything that was pissing me off, things I didn’t even expect to get fixed!”
Seems that other model really was a dog, perhaps our CSR knew that, perhaps not but she did understand what brand loyalty was and is. She did the right thing, even if this particular model turns out to be the POS the other one was, the way this was handled has confirmed to me that the premium we pay for Kenmore is worth the price of admission.
As I said, it is now years later and we have since purchased a new vacuum cleaner and yes, it is a Kenmore (and it sucks, but in a good way).
