| To
Other Columns By Linda...
I like to hunt. Okay, I love to hunt. Allright, the real truth: I am obsessed with hunting and the outdoors. My kindred spirits out there in the woods know exactly what I mean. It's not just a hobby or a pastime. It's a lifestyle. When we wake, when we rest, when we work or when we play, we think about
hunting. We dream about hunting. If we are lucky, our friends
and Significant Others are hunters. If not, we get funny looks or
we are told were are obsessed as if it was a sickness. I work like
a dog to afford my hunting. I am in the hunting business in a small
way, while at the same time running an accounting practice. I pull
14-hour workdays so I can hunt long weekends up at my hunting shack.
I also try to arrange 4-5 other hunts each year, around Minnesota and in
other States. I would do more if I could afford it.
And, being in the hunting business in a small way, I get to see the
'supply chain' side of these retailers and the workings of their overall
'people policies'. By 'people policies' I mean, the true integrity
of a retailer with everyone. This is not only how a retailer
consistently interacts with their customers, but equally important, is
how they interact with their vendors, clients and employees.
All retailers know that customer service is Job One. If retailers do not make the customer happy, they lose business and profits and maybe even go out of business. Most customers can tell the difference between an employee who is happy to see them and genuinely eager to please, as opposed to an employee who is performing out of duty. The dutiful employee makes us feel somewhat guilty for being in the store or on the phone. They make you ask for help, rather than offering. They act bothered and overworked. They want to be right so they make the customer feel wrong or insignificant. They have an employee mentality rather than an ownership mentality. Inconsistent people policies can keep a business in business, but it certainly won't make them #1. The real integrity of a business is revealed in how that business treats the people who are NOT their customers. It's only logical not to bite the hand of the customer that feeds a business. But what about the many other relationships in the supply chain where the retailer might have nothing to gain? Recently I was invited as a vendor to have an in-store display at the grand opening of the new Cabelas store in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. I have also been to the Sidney Nebraska Cabelas, have attended the Kansas City grand opening in 2002, and have had displays in their Minnesota store as well.
Remarkably, I have found the employees in all of those locations to have the same uncanny ability to make me feel important, both as a customer and as a vendor. I have watched Cabelas personnel serve many other people and have seen the same thing. I asked fellow vendors about their experience with the World's Foremost Outfitter as compared to their other retail customers. Nearly all have had the same positive experience. Let me interject that while retailers may bow at the throne of their customers as a normal practice in order to woo and keep them, it is the Vendors who generally bow at the throne of the retailers to get and keep their business. Many retailers take on a hoity-toity attitude with vendors as a result. But not Cabelas. The largest and the smallest vendors are treated with dignity even if Cabelas has nothing to gain and billable time to lose. I call this remarkable global company ethic the 'Cabelas Mystique'. I've spent years trying to figure out the Cabelas Mystique. It's
there on the Internet, on the phone, in their stores and exhibited by their
management. Walk in the door of any Cabelas, and there are greeters
to help you. One of them might even be the store manager. And
these are not just employees with fake smiles.
When I call or email their headquarters, I always get a response back. This has not been demonstrated consistently with other major retailers I have dealt with, as a customer or a vendor. For whatever reasons, excellent 'people policies' do not permeate the entire company staff of other major retailers like it does at Cabelas. One theory I have is that because Cabelas plunks it's retail stores smack in the middle of rural America and usually at least an hour from any major city, that it's employees are mostly rurals or from small towns and hence are more friendly. I have observed that rurals around my cabin in northern Minnesota are overall much friendlier than the folks in the city where my home is. I have also observed the Cabelas store meetings before the doors open at the beginning of the workday. It made me want to put on a green shirt and work for the Big C. With the Hamburg grand opening, I again 'marked' employees like I did
in Kansas City last year. Each time an employee asked if they could
help me, or approached me with a big smile, I clipped one of our new FireTacks
StarTrails markers on their clothing. Again like last year, half
the store employees were sporting StarTrails markers before the weekend
was over. I still go to my favorite small archery shops where the
owner walks up and calls me by name. But, Cabelas gives me that same
feeling when I go into their stores or deal with their management.
Cabelas stores may be thousands of miles apart, but they are united across
America by the Cabelas Mystique.
* Copyright September 2004 by Linda K. Burch Linda K. Burch
|
The Bowhunting Netcenter We invite you to visit some of the other Bowhunting.net Netcenter web sites: |
