id a typical Friday night used to mean driving to your neighborhood Blockbuster
store to get a copy of the latest movie release before they were all rented? And then did you watch the film within 48 hours to avoid a dreaded late fee? In 2004, Blockbuster had 60,000 employees in 9,000
stores and appeared invincible. At one point, a new
Blockbuster opened every 24 hours.
Arrogance and lgnorance
Afterbeingfined an outrageous late fee of$40 on a copy of the movie 'Apollo 13," Blockbuster customer Reed Hastings decided to act. Inl997,he co-founded Netflix, which would eventually stream movies online, and Blockbuster's days began to be numbered. (Ironically,
nearly 15 million views.
or United Airlines, a chilling future reality may be rn
store for us. Why would someone want to go through the time and effort to travel to a mal1 or other shopping destination only to deal with customer service as pitiful as what Reed Hastings or Dave Carroll experienced, when the1, q2n 6.6.. just about anlthing painlesslywith just a few clicks on Amazon or other retail websites? Online sales are expected to grow to more than $400 billion by 2018. That is nearly a half-trillion dollars of goods and services that consumers will no longer need to drive (and park) to get. Retail consultant Howard Davidowitz predicts that up to 50 percent of America's shopping malls will faii within 15 to 20 years. He expects that only upscale
The experience was a costly public relations and
financial nightmare for the airline. According to the London Tlmes online, "\ /ithin four days of the song going online, the gathering ofthe thunderclouds of bad pR caused United Airlines' stock price to plunge by 10 percent, costing shareholders $180 million. This
shopping centers with anchors such as Neiman Marcus
and Saks Fifth Avenue will make the cut. Malls that depend on anchors such as J.C. Penney and Sears, which are quickly ciosing stores, are most r,.r.rlnerable. "Middle-1eve1 stores in middle-1eve1 mal1s are going to be extinct because they don't make sense,"
would have bought Carroll more than 51,000 replacement guitars."
claims Davidowitz. "That's why we haven't built
Blockbuster passed on the chance to purchase Hastings'
company for $40 million in 2000.)
Another example of disregard for the customer
experience involved Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell. During a trip, the band's United Airlines plane stopped for a layover at Chicago's O'Hare airport. While the plane sat on the tarmac, one ofthe other passengers looked out the window and exclaimed, "They're throwing guitars out there!" Carroll's $3,500 Taylor guitar was badly damaged. He persisted with the airline for nine months to right the situation, then in desperation, created a song and video about his experience and posted his story on YouTube. His "United Breaks Guitars" video now has
TED JANUSZ is a professional speaker on the topic of "social media
for baby boomers,"
author, and marketing consultant. He is the author of the Socral Media Marketing Guide for Parking
Professionals, which is a free publication
for lPl members and
can be downloaded from parking.org/ socialmediaguide. He can be reached at teIr?; j
;i;*sp;es*::i*ii*;':*.
*rn 14
or 614.440.7487.
Shifting into Park
Maybe you don't need to concern yourself with a social media backlash because you and your employees treat your parking patrons with respect. And maybe you are not threatened by the rapid rate ofchange in the parking industry as in the technology industry. At least for the foreseeable future, consumers will need to use their cars to transport themselves to work, school, and to shop. When they do, they will need to park those cars somewhere. But, as with Blockbuster
INTERNATTONAL pARKtNG tNSTtTU-E
lRnntr
ZOtS
major
enclosed mall since 2006."
At the time of its opening in 1989, Columbus City
Center was Central Ohio's largest and most upscale shopping mall, but it was demolished in 2010. Fortunately, the parking garage adjacent to the ma1l found new use as a place to store the cars of employees who work dou.ntown. Other parking garages that support shopping centers may in the future not be as fortunate. How might your parking facility be affected by the growth of online commerce and the potential decline of the brick-and-mortar shopping facilities that surround it? How can you avoid becoming a Blockbuster? O