When the 2007 holiday season kicked off a little over a month ago, US-based electronics retailer Circuit City introduced a series of TV commercials focusing on the simplicity of the digital lifestyle. With the ads, Circuit City introduces their latest moniker “Simplicity Guaranteed“. According to Circuit City’s Chief Marketing Officer, the new spots “illustrate how Circuit City makes it simple to Shop (on-line), Buy (in-store) and Enjoy (firedog services) your digital lifestyle this holiday season and beyond”. ”Simplicity Guaranteed” is the latest in a series catch phrases used by the retailer over the last few years. Previous slogans have included “Imagine That” (2000-2001), “We’re with You” (2001-2004), “Just What I Needed” (2004-April 2007) and “Circuit City Makes it Simple” (2005 Christmas Season)
All of these past slogans describe brand perceptions that Circuit City aspired to but failed to achieve. Why? Because a company’s brand is not defined by its catch phrase, logo, aesthetic style or culture. A company’s brand is ultimately defined by the experience they deliver to their customers and Circuit City has been unable to consistently deliver experiences that supported those brand promises.
The latest revival of the Simplicity theme is part of a larger strategic framework that I helped develop for Circuit City a few years ago (you can hear about it here). Making it Easy for customers to shop, buy and enjoy is one of the four key ingredients to the vision my team proposed. We also recognized that delivering experiences consistently supported the “Make it Easy” idea would require significant changes in processes, culture and internal success measurements. Almost two years after those recommendations were made, Circuit City has “re-branded” many of the same operational features that they have been touting for years with the “Simplicity Guaranteed” label, but has not done any of the heavy lifting required to support the long-term strategic vision of sustainable growth through exception customer experiences.
Marketing strategist Scott Glatstein suggests five steps for building a strong brand and optimizing customer experience:
- Identify your reasons to believe.
- Identify customer touchpoints.
- Determine the most influential touchpoints
- Design the optimal experience
- Align the organization to consistently deliver the optimal experience
Reasons to believe are those things that the customer experiences that support the brand promise. Circuit City has decided that Simplicity is one of their reasons to believe, but they have not executed any of the other steps suggested by Glatstein. Without those crucial components, the customer experience can easily fall short of the brand promise. Here’s an example:
On Christmas Eve, we decided to purchase an iPod for a relative. In the weekend tab, Circuit City was advertising a free $15 iTunes card with purchase of a Nano priced at 149.99. Electing buy on-line and pickup in the store (A feature that usually does live up to the Simplicity promise) we went to the web to place the order. We were surprised and delighted to see the web price of $142.49, but noticed that there was no mention of the free iTunes card on the web. Here is the first indication of a problem. The tab touchpoint and the web touchpoint are not aligned in terms of the offer. This generates confusion and apprehension for the customer.
We made the purchase and left, with tab in hand, for the local store. When we arrived, the iPod was waiting for us as promised, but there was no $15 iTunes card. Our concerns about the conflicting offers are validated and we are now entering confrontation zone.
We showed the tab to the customer service associate who wasn’t sure how to deal with the situation. Someone else was brought over to correct the problem. He suggested to “return” the web order and resell it to get the iTunes deal. The CSA did that, but in doing so, the price went back to the advertised price of $149.99. The CSA called the assistant back and the process of “fixing the order” began. At one point, we were told that we owed another $0.70. At another we were going to get $).09 back. Clearly, the front line associates; the ones that come face-to-face with the customers every day, are not prepared to deal with this problem. The processes have not been optimized to deliver a great experience.
With the line backing up behind us, the CSA team finally found a way to make deliver the transaction with the free iTunes card at the price advertised on the website. The total in-store transaction time was over 20 minutes. Our expectations were not met and the other customers in line behind us got to share our experience as well.
So did Circuit City satisfy their 24/24 guarantee. Technically, yes as the web order was ready in less than 24 minutes. Did the experience reflect “easy to shop, easy to buy”? Absolutely not! Circuit City has not identified and evaluated all of their touchpoints against the “Simplicity Guaranteed” reason to believe. They have not designed optimal customer experiences that include these touchpoints, and they have not aligned the various channels and business functions to deliver an optimal experience. This may sound like an isolated incident, but it is not. Where else is dealing with Circuit City not Simple? How about rebates, scheduling an in-home service or getting a product repaired under warranty if you didn’t buy the extended service plan?
Circuit City was once a retail powerhouse. They practically invented the “Specialty Superstore” concept. Today they are struggling to remain relevant in what has become a commodity market. They have to compete with mass marketers like Wal-Mart and Costco who can price aggressively, niche players like Gamestop and Verizon who can beat them at the “authenticity” game and web marketers like Amazon and eBay who can always deliver a better selection and competitive prices. At $4.62, their stock price is trading a 52-week low and is flirting with a 5-year low. Circuit City will have to find a way to build a truly differentiated brand if they are going to survive. Simply adopting a new slogan that says you “make it easy for me” isn’t going to cut it. They must also consistently deliver a customer experience that supports the claim. Without that, the slogan only serves to set expectations that won’t be met and further erode the brand.
Many of you may have shopped Circuit City in the past couple of months. I would love to hear about your experiences and your ideas regarding how Circuit City could improve the customer experience.
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I’ve been saying this forever (blogged a bit too much about user-experience oriented marketing) and am beginning to implement this throughout the ad/promotions/communications/marketing process.
Towards that end, Circuit City has been rumored to be closing locations across the country for the past year. Guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Hey Jon, Thanks for the comment. I know from reading your stuff that this resonates. After 21 years at CCity, I was excited beyond words to be asked to help define the strategic framework for customer (and employee) experience. It’s been incredibly disappointing to watch as the executive leadership ignore that work over the past 2 years while the business spirals downward, but I also understand the financial realities. As an employee, would have never been this outwardly critical, but since I no longer work there, I don’t mind being so vocal. There are some bright spots in the form of a new store model that’s being tested, but I have concerns about their ability to scale that model. Time will tell.
That is so true! Getting good customer expirence and statisfaction should always be the priority.
As far as i m concerned i think slogan is also important for brand identity, recognition and promotion. So it has its own value. We can not deny the importance of slogan.
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As explicitly stated by the article, the brand is defined by the customer experience. I’d just like to highlight that slogans can be helpful to make these good memories last longer and as a way for customer to communicate with friends and relative that could become potential customers.