In view of what's been happening here, I thought it appropriate to write this little allegory.
***
Once upon a time, there was a big department store called M in the very big city of NY.
The department store M was known for many things, including the famous holiday parade and the equally famous holiday movie (both versions). It had a huge sign on its flagship store that boasted: World's Greatest.
By and by, M grew tired of being a store only for people who lived in or near the Vampire State.
So, in cahoots with Ms. Pacman, the department store M went all up and down the East Coast eating up smaller department stores. (Not only the East Coast but the Midwest and the West Coast.)
The department store M. also munched in New England, gobbling up a New England favorite, the department store JM.
New Englanders grew depressed. They loved their JM muffins, their JM dollar days, they loved everything about JM. But New Englanders had one thing they felt they could always count on: Their beloved store, the department store F. Not only New Englanders, but people in the Vampire State, also.
By and by, the department store M grew hungrier and munched all of the F. stores in New England, plus some in the Midwest and that most famous Marshall F. store in Chicago.
M changed everything.
Look! No coupons! Look! We have a simplified pricing structure! Look! We are different. Look! We are a national store from Maine to Hawaii, with a line in Canada's The Bay and a line in Hong Kong. We have exclusives with top designers - that guy with the combover, that lady who came from jail, that chick who doesn't know the difference between chicken and tuna, and the sexiest Calvin Klein male model to walk the face of the earth. (Calm down, ladies! Gabriel is taken. He's the father of Halle Berry's child.)
Customers wanted coupons. The customers wanted their home page. I mean, customer service.
The customers had shopped at the F. department store for their entire lives. Their grandparents met at F, and their parents had worked for Mr. F.
Customers came into the F department store for the member experience. I mean customer experience.
The sales associates had been there for years. The customers knew everyone by name.
The F department store was friendly. It was an experience. And the sales were fantastic.
But M changed all that. The sales associates weren't supposed to talk to customers. The prices were high and coupons were few and far between.
The house brand styles all looked alike.
The simplified pricing structure was too complicated. It confused members, I mean, customers. It even confused management.
The merchandising people knew more than everyone. Red tickets this week, blue tickets next week, green the week after. Purple on week five. Yellow week six.
But things always got screwed up.
Sale this week: 25 off. Next week: 25 plus 15 off. Big Sale of the Month: 35 off. Wait, that is less or about the same as the 25 plus 15.
Well, we can't figure it out, so the members won't either. I mean, the customers.
Customers were few and far between at many of the M stores. They began to shop at K, S, T and W, stores they had never even set foot in before.
Stores began to close. A few of the heavily trafficked malls did very well. Most did not.
It was well known that management at M was mixed up. They spent too much money on things that didn't matter. Things like consultants, ticket colors and paying people to stamp the tickets, all day every day. Even though customers and sales associates could never figure out what the ticket colors meant.
They spent too little money on things that do matter: super sales and member experience. I mean, customer experience.
The prices were still too high and associates were not supposed to talk to customers. Much.
Backwards.
The customers just wanted their old department store F back.
But knowing that would never happen, they just wanted their member exerience back.
I mean, customer experience.
But that was not likely to happen any time soon, because management had drunk the Kool Aid.
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Comments: 79
I loved your allegory...the Gather we knew is no longer. Sad.
Filene's Basement has not been connected with the former Filene's company for at least 20 years. It is now owned by DSW. (formerly Discount Shoe Warehouse).
I am trying NOT to be upset about Gather.
But I will repeat my comment on Pam's article.
Here is the part of my comment on Ford. (I used to write on automotive manufacturing for the computer industry magazines).
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Ford: We tried to tell you 30 years ago. Deming tried to tell the American public 50 years ago, but Detroit wouldn't listen. So he went to Japan and changed Auto Manufacturing in Japan. Japan built a statue honoring Deming, the American Guru of Manufacturing.
I was plucky enough to have scored a brief phone interview with Deming before he died.
He said: Managers need to listen to the people who actually do the work.
One of two main reasons American manufacturing will never be as good as European or Asian (German, Swiss, Swedish, French or Japanese), is that the VP of Manufacturing in America is NOT the plant manager, not the guy or lady who runs the plant floor.
In America, those who make decisions are NOT the people with the greatest knowledge of what should be decided.
For manufacturing, that would be the plant floor manager. Bue he or she is just the lowly plant floor manager, not the VP of Manufacturing. In America. the VP of Manufacturing is somebody with a business degree, since capitalism is the fuel that runs this country.
But in Japan, one of several reasons manufacturing is much better, is that the Plant Floor Manager makes the decisions about what technology to buy, how to run the factory, and so on.
I will refrain from making any statements that could be construed as any websites being a case in point.
thanks for sharing
I enjoyed reading your ARTICLE.
Michelle: They are. Maybe not M but you have T or W.
"from your fingers to gather's screen"
I miss the homepage, many of the articles my friends write, and the fact that emails never get answered. "associates were not supposed to talk to customers" seems to be the rule.
sadness
Regarding gather, I visit in spurts. If I'm not here for a couple of days I come back and it's all different. Change, of course, is the biggest constant of life. I was a little dismayed to find "shared a post," in lieu of "published an article." This was and is my first experience at writing, which possibly I was and am deluding myself.
..and to comment on the story in front of your story ;-)....Yes, we do have Ms here. They took over all the Liberty House stores which were a hallmark of Hawaii... it was a sad day.....and though they "try" to look like they are part of Hawaii, they have failed miserably.
TY Christine and all.
Sign out then click back. You will see what a brand new visitor to Gather sees. I would be interested in your reaction.
Are you finding articles? Mail? How to Publish? (EXPLORE - Share). PUBLISH is now Share.
Another clever, witty, ans all too true article, Kathryn!
{SIGH} The Good Old Days!!!
i haven't been on Gather for very long, but in that time: TWO upgrades. neither of which were stellar, IMHO.
good write, Kathryn.
i'll be back.
People HATE working for M and customers really MISS their old store.
Customer service, the heyday of the 70s, is not a selling floor cash cow and is too expensive. Too many consultants offering metrics, a poor way to do business.
We are nothing if not human with a human face.
I live in Texas and they bought out our classic upper crust store, closing them all down. Actually I liked the M store better because the choices were a lot more attractive and the F store they bought out had lousy products with upper crust prices.
Remember Netscape? It was the first internet browser to challenge Microsoft. Though it was known as a web browser and search engine, Netscape tried to rebrand itself as a social news aggregator. It tried to be Digg, but there was already a Digg so there really wasn't a point in having two. Old Netscape users hated the change, and Digg users were completely happy to remain Digg users. Now the site is known as Propeller, and not surprisingly it's still is still nowhere near as popular as Digg.
AOL officially disbanded Netscape in 2003, though the brand name still exists. AOL eventually dropped support for Netscape browsers as of March 2008, though it's latest release still enjoys a whopping 0.67% of the web browser market.
The big M took over Rich's in Atlanta. When both operated, the competition kept both chains on their toes. Without Rich's, Macy's went downhill.
And what's with the design on the non-home-page home page? Connecting circles? For a site for those over 30? Looks like something intended to appeal to high schoolers.
But yes, so much happens. We used Netscape at MIT because IE had so many holes; we were to told NOT to use Outlook or anything with MS because 'there were deliberate holes in the OS,' this goes back 10 years ago.
The only thing I have to say about Gates now is that Melinda has been very good for him and that OpenOffice and Mozilla - what the original open source people always wanted - is finally making MS check out.
Elizabeth: Exactly.
I want my old store back too.
Maybe we should all take a page from your book and keep all of our pictures blank in protest until.. the experience goes back to the way it was.
I've come to the realization - I am not going to waste my time worrying about it, besides I just did my rant so I'm good for a while. As long as I can find my friends and influence my settings to separate my core friends - I'm good.
If one day they change it to where it is no fun anymore - I'll leave. So far I like the book reviews and other things, but I agree it is no longer the gather that even I with only two changes under my belt recognize.