Retailers are hurting, and that’s one big reason why they all seem to have tried to push the start of the Christmas buying season to pre-Halloween. Maybe, though, the problem isn’t a lack of consumer confidence as much as it is an abundance of disgust at companies that don’t seem to remember that they ought to be treating customers as gold.
A couple of weeks ago, Macy’s reported October same-store sales were down by 1.5 percent. That was beat by Kohl’s, which admitted its same-store sales had plopped by 3.5 percent.
That’s not surprising, and a story about a pair of cufflinks illustrates why. A West Hartford shopper found a pair of inexpensive cufflinks at Kohls.com. Wanting them immediately, he drove to the nearest Kohl’s store in Canton. The store stocked no cufflinks. Miffed, he wanted to point out that the Web site did not label the items as “online only.” But he could not: Kohl’s has no Internet access; not for customers, not even for its managers. There is no computer in the store that can view the Web.
Back home, the shopper ordered the cufflinks and a number of other items online. Then he noticed he was being charged for shipping, even though the site offered free shipping. He called customer service and was told it would be taken off the bill. The items were scheduled to arrive over a period of weeks.
Some items, however, Kohl’s decided it would not deliver. It did not say if the items were out of stock; it did not say if they were discontinued. It just said the order for the items was cancelled, leaving the customer to wonder what happened.
Eventually, the final package with the last of the items Kohl’s did ship arrived. The packing slip said the two cufflinks were included. But there were no cufflinks. Another call to customer service (actually, two calls, because the first rep refused to discuss missing items). Kohl’s said it would ship the two cufflinks but would have to charge the customer again for them. After an increasingly tense exchange, Kohl’s finally agreed to send the cufflinks that were already paid for, but not delivered.
Then the customer got the final bill. Kohl’s had charged for shipping after all. Another call to “customer service,” and the company agreed to take the charge off. It noted, though, that it had not yet shipped the cufflinks. It promised to do so immediately. The customer asked for that in writing, via e-mail. The Kohl’s rep refused to do so.
Not surprisingly, several days later, there were still no cufflinks. After two more calls to customer service, the previous rep came back on the line. He said the company couldn’t ship the cufflinks because its computers showed they’d already been delivered — in the same delivery that the customer had called about in the first place to note they weren’t in the package.
Having had enough, the customer tried to talk to Tom Kingsbury, Kohl’s senior vice president in charge of its stores and e-commerce. Kingsbury refused to take any calls. His assistant refused to take any calls, and an e-mail to him was shunted to — customer service.
When a company’s sales are doing a swan dive, it might not be a bad idea for upper management to actually listen to a customer who’s trying to buy things from the company, but is being frustrated by systemic problems. If the guy in charge of getting things sold thinks customers are unimportant, it’s no surprise that’s the marching orders that get passed down through the ranks.
Kohl’s, of course, isn’t alone in turning its nose up at consumers. It’s no accident that “Dell hell” is one of the most searched terms for computer users. And the airline industry has apparently decided that the desire to board a plane and the yearning to engage in sado-masochism are synonymous.
Retail executives like Kingsbury seem to believe that the fortunes of their firms are told in spreadsheets and MBA-driven business plans. They’re wrong. Eventually, their fortunes are told by customers. Perhaps it’s time to actually start listening to them.
