Wal-Mart's services

Wal-Mart recently opened a new store in Pullman. I went to look around, and took some pictures for my blog. Some of the pictures show the service of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a retailer, but its service is critically important to the business especially when they have many competitors on the Market. In Pullman, Wal-mart's competitors are Dismores, Safe-way and ShopKo. Safe-way and ShopKo are even located right next the Wal-Mart. However, People are attracted to go to Wal-Mart because of its variety of products, cheaper price for goods, and better services. I have never been rejected when I went to Wal-Mart for returning goods. So what kind of services do Wal-Mart offer? First of all, Wal-Mart has customer service center for each store. It helps any customer with general questions or returning and refunding goods. It says they offer "Money services, returns and gift registry" service. There are some machines to help customers to help. Some tags are gone from products while moving or placing products. Wherever these machines are located, there is a sign says "Can't find a price? you can check it right here". Wal-mart sells shopping bags that are usable for customers. Speedy checkout serve customers buying less than 10 items for quicker process. Self-checkout is for convenience and quicker process of checkout. All these services attract customers to Wal-Mart, the king of retailers.

Chap 12. Services

Apple Cup Special Promotion

I went to Wal-Mart, and I saw lots of promotions including holiday promotion and Apple cup promotion. Apple Cup occured this weekend, and, thank to the bad call, Cougars lost by 7 points. Beer industry is always excited for big sports games. I guess it is a part of American culture that people drink beer while watching a sports game. Miller Lite placed their products with an advertisement supporting cougars for the apple cup. This is very localized strategy. I never thought a beer industry would support a college sports team because it never happens in Korea. This is also very localized promotion, and this promotion is target marketing people in Pullman or related to Washington State University. Generally American marketers do well on localizing promotions or at least do better than Korean Marketers. By the way, Miller Lite says it is a "Proud sponsor of cougar athletics", and I think they are supporting our football team too much. =P I hope cougars do well next year.

Chap 11. Promotion

Customer Relationship Management

I already made a post about CRM, but I just wanted to add these pics. Therefore, I am not going to add much information in this post. I have been a customer of State Farm for more than 4 years. This year, they sent me this calendar. They want me to put this calendar on my desk, so it reminds me of State Farm every time I look at the date on the calendar. This is a great example of CRM. For each month, there is a picture, and they put my last name "PARK" in the pictures. I feel loyal =)

Chap 1. Customer Relationship Management