In Response to Christine's Post: "Importance of Surveys"

At the end of Christine's post she proposed the questions, "What type of surveys do you take? How do you think marketers can get more responses from customers?"

Christine mentioned in her post that she doesn't enjoy taking surveys and only really takes them after ordering a product online. I actually love taking surveys. Absolutely love it! Almost every time I order a product online I will fill out the customer survey about the product in order to help others decide to buy it or not. And on the other side of the survey, I often read customer reviews before buying an expensive product because I find them useful. So I understand how this information can be useful for marketers to know how to improve their product if necessary. I agree with Christine that having an incentive would help marketers get more people to take surveys. I may not go as far as to say a gift certificate but I think a discount would work sufficiently. I think a lot more people would be willing to take a customer appreciation survey or stay on the line for telephone surveys if they were guaranteed a 10% off coupon. Do you think customer surveys are affective or a waste of time for the company?

"Say Yes to the Dress" But At What Price?

I watch the show Say Yes to the Dress frequently with my mom when I am home from school. Like many women, I enjoy the show because I like to dream about my future wedding dress. But does the show portray the wrong image about wedding dress prices? On the show, the bride meets with a consultant to discuss budget and the type of dress they are looking for. Research has shown that the average price tag on a wedding gown from Kleinfeld’s is $4500; quadruple the amount that the typical New York woman spends on her dress. Whereas, the average wedding dress price at David’s Bridal is only $550 (which is still expensive for one day!).  So why is it that women feel the need to spend so much money on one dress? Moreover, why are women so willing to fall for the wedding industry’s marketing schemes that weddings need to be extravagant and expensive? I think part of it is relationship marketing: establishing a long-term, mutually satisfying buyer/seller relationship. When a bride goes to Kleinfeld’s to buy her wedding dress, the consultants do everything in their power to make that bride look as beautiful as possible. They build up the relationship to help encourage the bride to purchase the ‘dress of their dream’. When in reality, that bride could probably find a similar dress for half the price somewhere else. I think Kleinfeld’s is a successful company because they have a centralized organization and they focus on finding that dream dress for the bride. They establish performance standards and actually match up to those standards by doing whatever they can to make the bride happy. This definitely helps encourage brides to spend those extra thousand-or-so dollars to find the perfect dress. Can you think of another company that is so successful because they are good at what they do?