I had a call from Cotswold Outdoor tonight. They weren’t interested in my day, or how Holly is doing or how Joyce is doing at work. No, they wanted the cold hard facts of my opinion of their catalogue, how I rated their product knowledge, how much I liked their website and where I bought stuff, and why it wasn’t with them.
The poor bastards.
My most common answer to a question was one of my own; “Is there a comment box under this question?”.
I made sure they knew that their website is mince though, it was good to get that off my chest. Rest assured it was very jovial and the girl dealt very well with my other constant of asking if there was a “…none of the above” option in good spirits. We went our separate ways both having learned something new.
I’ll expect mail with offers from “selected related partners” imminently.
I slated them on LFTO the other day – they did not price match as they claim. Lousy customer service.
I hope you charged them for your consultancy services. Cheeky b’stards!
The Glasgow store has some great staff. The rest of it though? Pah!
That website is an absolute nightmare. They’ve lost any business I could have pushed their way since they changed it. (expletive deleted pre-emptively)
It is the worst e-commerce website I think I’ve ever seen.
I wonder how much they paid for it?
Too much I would think. Certainly if they had the budget to get the pros in to knock up some ‘knowledge’ movies. And yes, the Glasgow store does have some good helpful staff, can’t complain there.
It’s the stock the poor sod have to be enthusistic about, I feel for them.
I feel a Grumpy Old Man moment coming on.
Cotswold’s site and products might be a disaster, but if they don’t ask for feedback, they will never improve. What will be very disappointing is if they do nothing with it.
So I applaud them for the fact that they are at least asking.
Those of us who read and enjoy your banter, are a fairly specialised and very small market. Back in the good/bad old days, the outdoor shops were specialists, staffed by specialists. Tiso’s in Rodney Street, Nevisport in the Bill, then Glasgow, the staff really knew their stuff and their customers — and the products were fairly limited.
The market has changed completely and they are all now basically Department Stores, with the staffing, particularly at weekends, pretty poor. Simple questions on a sleeping bag construction at the GOE in Glasgow on Saturday morning drew a blank stare? Help!!
But thats where we are now, big outlets all over the country needing volume sales to keep going. I can only think of a couple of “old style” shops now, but they are too far away to get my custom. So nearly all of my stuff is bought over the internet nowadays.
When was the last time any of you went to a shop asking for advice on products? I haven’t done that in more than 20 odd years, maybe more.
But at the same time, subscriptions are taken out with websites in the US and info is exchanged on the latest bit of super-duper stuff that is usually only available over the internet. That’s where our little market is going.
Enjoy the Tiso’s, Cotswolds, etc while you can. They won’t be there much longer as the masses will be going to Tesco or the like and our stuff will be web only.
The times they are a’changing. Rabbie Burns?
The internet is making customers much more knowledgable for sure. The bricks and mortar independants will cope with that as they’re mostly enthusiast owned, the ‘net based stores even more so.
You’re right we will see change. Just exactly what? We’d clean up if we could guess that right.