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What's YOUR Reputation?
October 2, 2008

I was so flattered yesterday when a very sweet customer told me that we had the best reputation of anyone in town and that all of her friends had recommended that she come see us.  She said that she wasn't referring to a couple of people, but LOTS of people from all over the area who had told her about us.  I was almost embarrassed when she was telling me.  

"It's because of you girls and your hard work," said Mom after hearing of the compliment.  Hard work is right.  My sisters and I bust our tails for this business and for our customers.  There are essentially 2 sides to every coin and with this type of reputation comes great expectation and even greater responsibility.  It makes me a little nervous, though, that we do have such high expectations placed upon us because it is far easier to disappoint people with high expectations than it is to please people with low expectations.  That is not to say that I would trade our reputation for anything, I just realize what it takes to maintain this reputation.

It makes me wonder about competitors and their reputations.  I know, for instance, that one local store is notorious for their lack of post-purchase service.  (That's not all they're notorious for but I'm not here to waste my time with that laundry list.)  Most of our competitors have decent reputations both within the consumer base and within the local market, that is, among other stores.  I would love to see the reviews on some sort of chart, though.  It would be interesting to see what stores have how many good reviews vs. bad reviews and so forth.  I would also love to see our reviews broken into a chart that could be used as a metric for determining what areas could use improvement.

So, what is your reputation locally and how do you intend to improve or maintain it in the short and longterm future?

Posted by Kelly Nelson on October 2, 2008 | Comments (1)