Conversation Control

Your Store Might Not be ‘Coca-Cola,’ but It’s Still a Brand. Here Are Ways to Protect Your Image, Engage Consumers

J.W. went to buy almost $8,000 in furniture this year from a Rooms To Go store in Charlotte, N.C., looking to take advantage of a three-year, no-interest deal. Sounds good, right?

Here's what J.W. had to say to the world on the yelp.com consumer review Web site: "Beware, Beware, Beware." The customer said that after four deliveries of defective merchandise he/she withheld payments since he/she didn't have the furniture they ordered. Then, the customer got angry over repeated calls and late fees from GE Money, which handled the financing for the retailer, and told the consumer defective furniture wasn't their problem.

J.W.'s advice to fellow consumers: "If you are going to finance furniture; buy it from a store that carries their own paper so that if you have a problem, they will have to resolve it or not get paid." The customer also added a dig at the quality of RTG's Cindy Crawford line.

Rooms To Go can hardly be blamed for GE's calls and late fees, but as the store where the furniture buy took place, the retailer bore J.W.'s very public online wrath.

It's just one example of how a 24-7 news cycle, the Dodge City of social media, and a tangled Web make it easier than ever to lose control of your brand's image and message. There aren't a lot of widely recognized brands in furniture retailing, but this month, we asked some of the big names out there how they protect and build their brand. We also got input from brands outside the furniture industry and thoughts from people who make their living working with companies to project and enhance their image among consumers.

GUARDING THE NAME Thomasville has a network of 110 storefronts, corporate- and independently owned, as of the end of the second quarter. It's not rare for others to seek to capitalize on the brand's identity, said Thomasville president Edward Teplitz.

"One of the biggest problems we've had are trucks that say Thomasville and go out on the side of the road and start selling furniture in markets where we have distribution," he said. "We come down hard on that. When we hear about one of those, we ask the retailer for information, the license plate, make, and follow up on that with the DMV. We go after them—we get cease-and-desist orders and we've stopped them on several occasions."