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So, it is upon us again.  72 hours of technology, speeches, and a good old fashioned evening throw down or two (that’s “partying” for the kids out there).  SugarCON has always lived up to the hype.

This will be my 5th SugarCON event…from my first back in 2007 back in San Jose (the St. Claire?) through this one at The Palace in San Jose. I have high expectations for this year’s event – and I am sure the conference won’t disappoint.

As a SugarCRM system integration partner, Levementum always uses SugarCON to check in on our friends and competitors in the industry, and to find some new customers along the way…and this year, we’re looking forward to working the floor along side a number of new partners that are showing the SugarCON is more than just SugarCRM.

Our friends at Mindtouch, and their fearless leader Aaron Fulkerson, will be a major sponsor.  And in our booth, we’ll have one of our friends from OpenERP (our new ERP partner), and we’ll also be sharing info on Magento e*commerce, and Compiere ERP.

While most conferences seem to cater to the “newbies”, Levementum’s big push at SugarCON will be to look to help existing customers find ways to get more out of their Sugar investments, and help them find opportunities to expand and get more leverage out of the great technology that they already know and love.  We will be inviting customers to take advantage of our “Discovery Sessions”…and who better to help customers understand the value of that than a customer of ours that has gone through the process.  Kelli Davis, CIO of Castlebranch, a SugarCRM and Levementum customer, will be in our booth all conference talking about how her organization continues to get more and more out of SugarCRM.

So it should be an exciting week – not just to learn about SugarCRM, but to learn about the exciting solutions that integrate with it, and to learn about how to get more out of it!

See you there!

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OK – normally I don’t write blogs bashing companies when I have a bad experience, mainly because I don’t have that much time available.   But I had an experience last weekend at a local Target store that can serve as a great lesson on customer service.  So I decided to share it.

The Background

My 12 year old son recently received a Target gift card from a friend for his birthday.   He also received a new Xbox 360 from his parents for his birthday.   Last weekend he decided that he wanted to spend his gift card on the game “HALO 3″, so I took him over to Target to pick it up.

While at Target, we noticed two HALO games in the display case.   One was HALO 3, the other was HALO WARS.   Not being able to tell the difference between the games we asked the Target employee who was working at the Electronics counter about the difference between the two.   We were told that HALO WARS was the ‘newest version’ of the popular game.   What he didn’t tell us was that HALO WARS is a totally different STYLE of game and isn’t anything like the HALO 3 game my son originally wanted.

An hour later, after opening and realizing the difference, we returned to Target to exchange the HALO WARS game for the other version.   That’s where the fun begins.

Make Sure Your Sales Team Knows the Product

Back at the Target store when attempting to return the game we purchased, I was told it couldn’t be exchanged because we had opened the box.   The fact that I had purchased it only an hour before – didn’t matter.   The fact that the sales rep had told me it was the same type of game – didn’t matter.   When I challenged the sales rep to be accountable for the fact that he didn’t warn me it was not the same style of game he simply said – “I don’t know the differences in all the games”.

Don’t you work in the department?  Isn’t it your job to answer customer questions about the products?  If you don’t know, shouldn’t you have asked?

A Blown Chance to Remedy the Situation and Save A Customer

My family spends about $2000/year at this local Target.    Frankly, I’ve always been pretty satisfied with the store.   The service isn’t always great, but the stores are clean, the quality is pretty good, and I can usually find what I’m after quickly.    But since I spend a good bit of money at this store, I’m miffed that the staff isn’t taking responsibility for sticking me with a $40 game and wasting my son’s birthday present.

I decide the best strategy is to speak with the GM of the store.  Surely she will care enough about my business to resolve the conflict.   I understand the software piracy issues and implications – but there are always amicable solutions to any customer problem if you are creative.   Or at least I thought there were…..

After explaining the situation to the GM, and validating it with the employee (who was defensive, but honest about the sequence of events) I was told that “Target’s policy is that no games can be returned once opened.   Even though the employee should have been more informed of the products, there was nothing they she could do”.  Flabbergasted,  I pushed back.   Surely they didn’t want to loose a customer who spends $2K/year over a $40 game because of a ‘policy’.   Surely there is a creative solution.   I can understand the dilemma over the copyright issue so I offered other alternatives:

- Give me the other game and eat it as a loss

- Give me a gift certificate for the lost amount and I’ll buy the correct game

- Give me a coupon for $40 off my next purchase of $200 or more

- Give me $40 worth of underwear or t-shirts

- Donate something to my son’s school

Anything to make me whole and to demonstrate that Target takes accountability for the fact that it’s sales reps should know the products they are selling.

Crickets could be heard…..

I took my worthless, but brand new game down to the local ‘Game Stop’ specialty store.   They gave me trade in credit for it against a new game and, geeks that they are, were appalled that the Target sales rep didn’t know the difference between the two games.   They felt bad enough that they actually gave me an additional discount off of the replacement game!

The next day I found the local Walmart and my family hasn’t been back to Target.   We won’t go back for at least a year.

The Lessons

There are a few good lessons for all of us from this situation.

1) As a consumer buy from people who clearly know the products well.  I won’t be buying games from anyone other than a Game Stop store from this point forward

2) Make sure that your sales people know the products they are selling.    When they make mistakes, teach them to be accountable.    Target could have won me for life if either the sales rep or GM had just been accountable for the situation.   Instead, they lost my business.

3) Be creative.   Sometimes you can’t give the customer exactly what they initially want in a conflict situation.  But it’s important to be creative and find a way protect the relationship.  Good companies teach and encourage their leaders to find mutually beneficial solutions to problems.   The inflexible application of Target’s ‘company policy’ by the GM not only lost my business, but compelled me to create negative PR.

Oh, and I almost forgot -Halo 3 is a fun game to play.    Thanks Game Stop,  we’ll be back to buy more from you in the near future.