Sears - a 124-Year-Old Brand - Embraces Marketing Innovation
Posted: June 10, 2010 | Amanda Fildes
The Sears brand has been around for over 124 years. Reading this Chief Marketer interview with Sears’ Senior Vice President Online I was surprised to learn that they’ve been vigorously pursuing a multi-channel strategy including online merchandising, mobile commerce, and communities. They’ve even gone as far as to open up an online marketplace, similar to Amazon.com, that allows consumers to shop directly from vendor sites.
Sears developed much of this approach based on feedback from their customers. If you visit the MySears community site – you’ll notice that it includes everything from customer reviews and questions about products to compliments and complaints about service in the store. I think the biggest fear companies face when embarking on an online community is the possibility of negative things being posted. Sears has really faced this fear head on and their community includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. What you might be surprised to read is that Sears’s customer satisfaction scores weren’t negatively impacted by the approach – they actually went up!
Companies are beginning to realize that customers are taking to online communities to discuss products and services whether you want them to or not. The question is will your company ignore them – or join in and be part of the conversation?
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