The Case of the Turned-Off TV

During a trip to visit friends, I tried to pack light. Since I can grow a beard in about three hours, I left my contractor-sized shave cream can at home and opted to buy a small travel canister at the airport. Apparently, manufacturers and retailers have not yet received the memo about the three-ounce size limit at airport security. I bought the smallest size sold, a four-ounce canister, and five minutes later had it promptly confiscated by security because it was too large.

That led me to a familiar needs-based store after my flight. Yet my compulsion to see how the store treats digital signage easily overcame my need to mow the hair off my face. I headed to the home theater department and saw this:

090624_Tvsoff

Could it be that the store did not switch to digital?

I had to ask the twenty-something employee manning the deserted department. (For aural sound effects in your head, please add the “DUN DUN” from Law and Order here.)

Me: I see all your TVs are out.
Emp: Yeah, they’ve been out out for a while.
Me: How long?
Emp: Umm, about a week.
Me: A week? Have you seen any change in traffic through the department?
Emp: Actually, not really. It kinda comes and goes.
Me: Have you seen a change in TV purchases?
Emp: Oh yeah. We haven’t sold any TVs in a while.

That’s all I needed to hear.

Empty. That’s how the department felt. Empty. And that’s how any environment feels when a screen utilized for digital signage is not working. It feels like a massive chunk of the experience is missing. And that is bad. Bad. Bad.

After justification for everything I have been doing in this industry came to bear, I took my pride to the man-shave-area to pick up a small canister of my favorite shave cream.

They were out of stock.

(DUN DUN)

  • http://www.sixteen-nine.net Dave Haynes

    You should have taken the kid’s pulse, to see if he had one.

    This just a TV wall but it applies to all DS installs in any retail or public areas. Make sure you can remotely monitor and control the panels. The could care less if your stuff is on or off.

  • Paul

    Dave,

    I totally agree. What saddened me about this (besides the fact my beard was down to my neck) was that the sets had been out a week. All that was going through my mind was, “Did no one bother to call and ask? Where’s the manager of the store? Where’s the GM or district GM? It’s not like there’s a lightbulb out in aisle four.”

    Sadly, this is the truth about retail. The 17 year-old kid barely making minimum wage is not going to care about 100K in sets with no programming.

    But…you have given me fodder for another post. Read soon.

  • http://Digitalsignagetoday.com Bill Y.

    I’ve been saying this for years (having worked a bit in retail) – No one in the store cares!! Except for maybe the manager. Its more of a customer service empathy issue than anything else, and it drives me crazy. I think retail needs to find a better way to motivate employees. Where I worked, there were no incentives for good performance (and it was a billion $ company too).

  • http://www.youtube.com/artisanlive Stephen Ghigliotty

    Oh my.

    My job is with a large POP company and what I have learned about compliance would curl your hair. You simply cannot rely on retail staff to give a flying fig about your hard work; either when it is a corrugate or a multi-thousand interactive kiosk or digital signage.

    Remote reporting of screen activity via RS232 or another tech is really paramount.

  • Pingback: Experiate » How To Make The Store Employee Care

  • Pingback: Turning Customers Into Consumers « Experiate

Previous post:

Next post: