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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (91490)	12/19/2004 5:41:47 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793597

Hewitt is beating his drums. Looks like it is working. I am surprised that Target has let this public relations disaster happen. Doesn't make any difference what other chains have done. They have to CYA. Yesterday's Atlanta Journal Constitution carried an article that for the first time documents the harm Target Corporation has done itself by exiling Salvation Army from its stores' doors. Key paragraphs: "America's Research Group, a shopping-behavior tracker and marketing firm in Charleston, S.C., phoned 800 households nationwide and determined that Target was the only major retailer with fewer customers last weekend compared with the same holiday-shopping weekend in 2003. The survey indicated 55 percent of U.S. consumers visited stores over the weekend, with 12 percent patronizing Target. A year ago, 43 percent went shopping, and 30 percent of those shoppers included Target in their rounds. 'That's a significant decline,' said ARG Chairman Britt Beemer, who noted 16 interviewees offered without prompting that they avoided Target. 'There is getting to be a significant amount of backlash.'" The article makes clear that customers have been shunning the Scrooge of American retailers, and only an incredibly stubborn management team will continue in this course. It is not a one-year, one-Christmas-season disaster. The damage will go on and will grow as Target's obstinate refusal to listen to its customers comes to be understood, correctly, as contempt for the opinions of those customers. The CEO ought to overrule all the lower-downs who put him into this position and issue a welcome back invitation and work to get the kettles back this year. Target should also provide a "make-good" donation, and do so under the heading of "we listen to our customers --the Salvation Army is different." All would be quickly forgiven, and indeed Target's standing in the eyes of its customer base could even rise. But not if the corporation continues to insist that it knows more than its customers. Another e-mail might help, but one that strikes the "more in sorrow than in anger" tone. Send it to guest.relations@target.com, or use the other contact info the corporation provides. There are some voices urging Target to stubbornly cling to the title of Scrooge, telling the management team that this will pass. It won't, of course, and nothing could be more obvious. Only vanity explains the decision to dig in and double down, when an honest admission of error and a change of policy could recover the situation, and get the Salvation Army the support it needs to care for the country's least and lost