Smiley face frowns
Isee some understandable truth in a satisfaction survey of 122,500 adult consumers conducted by Forrester Research, an independent, international marketing firm.
Valued readers know I can become, well, a tad irreverent when it comes to experiences in the crowded aisles of Wal-Mart stores. I admit to enduring the unexpected amid the shelves while trying to carefully navigate (without physical or emotional injury) from the squash and turnips to the treacherous canned-veggie aisle.
In Forrester’s findings of overall customer experiences and satisfactions in shopping with various companies, the smiley-faced behemoth from Bentonville, innovative brainchild of the late revered Sam Walton, finished last, as in bottom of the barrel. That’s bound to cause a frown.
The group calling itself Making Change at Walmart wasted no time issuing a statement. “This new survey confirms that despite Walmart’s claims of putting customers first, they continue to come in last with the American public,” said Jess Levin, the group’s communications director.
“Workers tell us every day about erratic schedules, understaffed stores and low wages,” she continued. “This translates into a negative in-store experience for Walmart’s customers. America’s largest retailer should be ashamed, and we will keep fighting to give workers real, meaningful change.”
Wal-Mart’s marketing and PR folks can’t be all too pleased with that grade. Perhaps it’s time to borrow a page from Barnes and Noble booksellers, which was the lone traditional retailer to be included in the highest-rated enterprises, coming in at No. 12.
As a sign the times are indeed a-changin’, it was an array of digital retailers that scored top marks, primarily because those surveyed believed their experience with online buying delivered 17 positive emotional experiences for each negative, as opposed to 13 positives for each negative from traditional retailers. Leading the pack in digital retailers were QVC and Zappos, tied at fifth.
Credit-card provider USAA was ranked first in overall customer experience of all the brands Forrester studied. Really? A credit-card company? Yep, the times already clearly have changed.
Sadly divided
I wonder if we as Americans who share this democratic republic are mentally and emotionally prepared for what the contentious weeks between now and Nov. 8 will bring.
With our nation already sharply divided by what I’m convinced is largely through political calculation, these next three months are very likely to pit good friends and family members with strong, emotionally charged views on freedom and individual liberties against those who prefer a government-controlled society. Even the two major political parties already have split within their ranks.
Already, I’ve seen lifelong friendships fractured sharply over differences in how our society should be managed. You’ve likely witnessed the same thing. With the future of our Supreme Court on the line, as well as justifiable security concerns and resulting fears facing us, this election promises to be perhaps the most historically conflicted and partisan since the Civil War.
It’s regrettable, even tragic, that we’ve come to this in a nation that has stood for so long as the planet’s beacon for individual freedoms and personal growth and success.
I suppose many of you also have noticed how this is unfolding on our watch. I’m speaking of the baby boomer children of the Greatest Generation who sacrificed so much so we might maintain freedom from tyranny and oppression. Appreciate him or not, it was the late President Ronald Reagan who cautioned us that this great experiment called freedom as a republic of laws is tenuous at best, hanging precariously from the thread of a single generation away from extinction.
And so the name calling, hatemongering and personal attacks willfully spread by the national media that profits enormously from the rancor and mistrust will continue ad nauseam across the Internet and airwaves until election day.
Then, on Nov. 9, the direction of these United States for perhaps the next half-century will be known. And Americans will experience what the future holds for our children and theirs “under God” in what those of us over 50 grew up knowing as the land of the free and home of the brave.
Political paradoxes?
It’s interesting to me that those who subscribe to the liberal bent of politics by and large would not favor taking the life of a convicted murderer, yet would likely support the choice to end the life of a forming human being.
Conversely, the more conservative members of society largely favor the death penalty for deserving murderers, while preferring to eliminate the practice of taking a developing human life.
The significant difference I see in these clashing moral and legal philosophies is that one victim has been convicted of criminally taking another life while the yet-to-arrive human is the epitome of pure innocence. Yet both involve the value of life.
Some Ozarks food for reflection, regardless of which perspective you favor.