Q&A with Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson
Some smart advice from a customer-centric organization:
I believe that some of our best ideas have come from the people who are furthest removed from the CEO’s office - those line-level employees who interact with our customers each and every day. We’ve got a wonderful team of eccentric people working in our Manhattan store on 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. Now, there’s a large Brazilian community near the store, and the manager said, “Hey, we don’t do anything to cater to them.” So he hired folks who spoke the language in the store. They wound up discovering that there are cruise ships of Brazilians that come to New York City, so they contacted the travel company and found that the store was a desirable stop for them. So all of a sudden we have buses of tour groups pulling up on Sundays. If we waited for someone in Minnesota to come up with that idea, we’d still be waiting.
Q&A with Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson
Brian Lamb (blog author) says:
Added on April 19th, 2007 at 8:58 amThe lesson of this story if you are in charge of a website for a large organisation? Don’t get stuck in Minnesota (or wherever corporate HQ is) or you will miss the Brazilian cruiseships (or whatever opportunity to get closer to your customers.)