Yesterday, I went to our local Hollywood video. I was looking for a movie by Nick Park (of Wallace & Gromit fame) called “Shaun the Sheep”. At the time, I didn’t know the exact spelling and couldn’t find it on the shelf under “S”.
The guy at the counter couldn’t find anything similar in the computer. He looked with several different spellings “Shawn, Sean, Sheep, Baah,” etc. He couldn’t search by director, either. Then it dawned on me. I have the internet on my iPhone. I should search there! I pressed the Google button, followed by the “voice search” button and spoke out loud into my phone “Shaun the Sheep”. Within a few seconds I was looking at the official fan site and all 6 of the DVDs (only 3 are available in the U.S so far). Shaun the Sheep: Back in the Ba-a-ath In fact, within a few seconds more I could order the DVD and have it on my doorstep the next day.
The moral here: If companies don’t have excellent technology support within their shops, they will lose business. It should scare you as a business owner when the customer has more power on their phone than the person behind the counter does with a high speed connection and full computer. It’s time for some technology investment. It’s smart business.
Hmmm – I thought Netflix doomed all of these stores… Did you notice if the stores systems were dumb terminals? Sounds like another prospect for you – if not to update their systems – than to sell them iPhones!