Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

80 BRAND RELEVANCE
would affect the layout, store features, and the type and training
of people. In particular, stores that went after the busy suburban
mom had personal shopping assistants who would guide,
recommend, help with the transaction, and load equipment into
vehicles. Stores after the young gamer have a good selection of
games and an area where the games can be tried out.
Still another initiative that fi ts with the new thrust was
the Twelpforce, whereby hundreds of employees interact with
customers via Twitter. They can answer questions in real time
about service or application issues. The tweets are aggregated
and available for the customer interested in a particular issue on
the Best Buy Web site. The Twelpforce reinforces the fact that
Best Buy has knowledgeable employees who will help you have
a better purchasing and user experience and provides a useful
information platform that for some will be a go - to source.
In 2009 Best Buy embarked on a program that potentially
could create a new subcategory: stores that have taken the
leadership on recycling electronics and have a concern for
the environment. 5 It ’ s management recognized that sustainability
is a rising social value and thus a business opportunity. Best
Buy had experimented with small recycling efforts since 2001,
but in March 2009 they launched a program, ultimately branded
as Greener Together, to take almost anything electronic at no
cost. TV sets, computers, and monitors required a $ 10 recycling
fee that was balanced by a $ 10 discount coupon. Unlike the
Geek Squad, this effort will not make money, but it provides a
service to customers and validates a claim to having a cradle - to -
grave relationship with customers. It also gets customers to make
a store visit, which is an important part of store marketing. More
important, it helps the brand. It makes Best Buy stand out as a
green leader in environmental sensitivity and sustainability and
thus for many provides another basis for a relationship. People
like to do business with fi rms they respect and admire.
There is a possibility that the recycling effort may lead to
eventually to such offerings as solar panels and windmills.