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Years ago I wrote a letter to Paul Raines, then the CEO of Gamestop. Mainly I complained how terrible the store experience was. Whereas Apple stores feel like
by ordinaryperson 8y ago
Years ago I wrote a letter to Paul Raines, then the CEO of Gamestop.
Mainly I complained how terrible the store experience was. Whereas Apple stores feel like an avant-garde museum Gamestops feel like the inside of a Chuck E. Cheese circa 1987 -- games everywhere, no real organization, no marketing of individual titles or genres, it's just grabbag nonsense of plastic container after plastic container.
Days after I sent the letter, his secretary called me and scheduled a phone call for the next day.
Paul could not have been nicer. He said he appreciated the criticism and offered to have his district manager tour a location with me so I could share in greater depth my concerns.
I declined (too busy) but was obviously taken aback with his generosity and patience.
Sadly, he passed away in March of this year from brain cancer at the very young age of 53.
He had no real incentive to respond to an angry letter from a random customer, but he went way out of his way to at least listen to me (even if the stores haven't improved much).
R.I.P. Paul.
- anoncoward111 8y agothis is an incredible story and has personally made an impact on me i didn't know paul before he died (on my birthday even), but because of your comment, i researched his story i work in sales, so rejection and silence are very frequent. it is rare for anyone to connect through writing or through voice, and quite often i feel like nobody desires to brainstorm and have fun thinking about ideas in a low pressure environment i wish you well in life and i hope that we can both live every day to the fullest-- because not all of us have the luxury of time
- douevenshiftbro 8y agoHow do you make the ( without a shift key?
- medecau 8y agoyou mean the parenthesis?
- NikolaNovak 8y agoI am guessing it was a snarky comment on the lack of capitalization, which I would not have noticed otherwise.
- canoebuilder 8y agoCall it snark if you will, but it is intelligent, perceptive, witty snark, a rare combination. (check out that username) vouched I think it's perfectly reasonable to have people socially pressure others to keep to the agreed upon conventions of communication. (It's kind of what this place is known for.) If someone wants to do it in a funny way, all the better. Humor wins hearts and minds. I don't understand the ignoring of basic writing conventions thing. If you think that's going to make your writing stand out, or be more expressive or whatever, you're wrong. It is less expressive, and it only stands out for being disorienting and unpleasant to look at and read. Seeing people write like this brings to mind this quote. Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. Write with the standard conventions, so that what stands out are your ideas, not the reader's effort to piece together your loose ends.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoThe post is readable to me. I've myself been called out for grammar and I find it kind of useless to be told my grammar is off. If you don't understand my post at all then tell me, otherwise I'm sorry that having English as a second language and not learning it as well as you have is not my top priority in life. I'm also sorry for my bad English, I'm American.
- canoebuilder 8y agoI don't understand your post, or at least the way I understand it I hope is wrong. You basically seem to be trying to win points based on your identity, a popular game these days, but completely out of place in this conversation, and everywhere really. I think you misunderstood my post, I wasn't bemoaning that everyone's grammar isn't perfect. I was pointing out that the things learned very early in language education, capitalization and punctuation are learned for a reason. And intentionally omitting them is distracting and detracts from what is trying to be said.
- zafka 8y agoYour username caught my eye. Anon or a non ? Regards, Jim
- shubb 8y agoIf you don't want your name next to a coment on theregister.co.uk, you get that username
- your-nanny 8y agoAnon coward is a slashdot innovation I believe.
- zafka 8y agoThanks!
- anoncoward111 8y agoHaha that's funny! Anon coward, as in anonymous coward. The other user that replied to you is correct :) :) Thanks for writing Jim :)
- erikb 8y agoI love how you simply declined the offer. What a balsy move.
- jacquesm 8y agoI would have taken him up on it. If an issue is important enough to me to write the CEO of a company then it would have most likely been important enough to me to respond pro-actively to a meaningful response. Otherwise what's the point of writing such a letter in the first place?
- jacobush 8y agoYep. "Call my doctors office and cancel that triple by-pass. I have a new plan for Monday!"
- bjelkeman-again 8y agoBeing too busy is of course a legitimate reason. Without knowing why he declined it is silly to criticise it, I think.
- jacquesm 8y agoNot too busy to send letters to the CEO. I never get this: you start a conversation and then when the other party engages you disengage. The CEO's response was about as good as you could wish for and would give an opportunity to influence the view of the company at the level where it matters. That's what you intend when you write to the CEO, you do that because they are the people that can make stuff happen, including putting you in touch with the right person further down the org, not because you want to chat with the CEO. They're just a very visible access point and writing them a letter is a way of saying 'this really matters to me'. If you are too busy to follow up on such a response then maybe you could save everybody time by not writing the letter in the first place.
- darkerside 8y agoTo be fair, I don't think the district manager would likely have been totally engaged in what he'd view as babysitting an irate customer. Now if Paul had also offered to accompany the tour, there you're getting meaningful engagement.
- snowwrestler 8y agoI'm impressed but not surprised he responded; that sort of clear, actionable feedback can be surprisingly difficult for a CEO to get, especially in retail. Most retail CEOs don't reserve much time for popping into stores and talking to customers, and store and district managers tend to dislike it--feels like micromanaging. But at the same time, store managers and district managers are often not eager to feed a list of their stores' shortcomings up the chain of command. IMO it's a rare retail manager who is willing to stand up and say, "my store is bad and here is what I need to make it good." Most focus on putting the best possible face on things, internally. It's so hard to make good numbers in retail and there is so much pressure to do so... relationships between the management layers can often feel more adversarial than collaborative.
- EthanHeilman 8y agoIt seems like a hidden success factor of organizations is alignment between the success of each individual within the organization with the success of the organization. At the size of a large retail operation that seems exceptionally hard.
- wmeredith 8y agoGameStop is sorely in need of some micro managIng. I was in there with my daughter the other day looking to buy a Nintendo Switch and some Pokémon cards. The place was a cramped disorganized mess. And the neck beard working the counter grunted half hearted responses to our questions for about 5 minutes before we left with nothing. About 20 minutes later I spent $350+ at Amazon using my smartphone while we ate lunch in the food court.
- anonymouskimmer 8y agoFood courts are the best part of the mall experience. As malls disappear it would be nice if the multi-restaurant open and shared dining experience was preserved.