the website

I know some customers love the idea of browsing a stores website and finding individual products, however, with the diversity within individual Wood You store inventories that doesn’t always work. There is nothing more difficult than having to explain to a customer the piece of furniture they just printed off the woodyou.com site are not available at their local store, not because anything is wrong with it that store just doesn’t carry that particular manufacture. I agree with your blog something needs to change. The interactivity of the blog, I feel, truly bring a needed cohesiveness to the Wood You experience. Also, a prime component to the Wood You experience is the diversity of products in individual stores. In theory all Wood You stores could carry the same items and become the cookie cutter store of most major chains today, but we’re not. Each store although with the same exemplary customer service, is very much diverse in items and configuration. Some carry and sell more of one manufacturer than others. That local diversity allows for a customer on vacation to experience a fresh Wood You no matter which locations they visit. My idea is play up the fact that Wood You stores in different locations, while they have the same standards in quality and customer service they are different. Woodyou.com should focus on sending customers to the individual sites to experience the local as well as the far away store. Imagine a customer from Opelika going to a game in Gainesville and making time to stop in a Wood You. Woodyou.com as the home site should encourage this by pointing out the diversity but sending customers to individual store sites to see the products that particular store carries. The way to do this is take the list of manufacturers and create a page of popular items and new or featured items from each one and link those to the respective store sites that carry that manufacturer. Also, on each page, of course, a link to that manufacturer’s website is needed. Therefore each individual store will have pictures of products from the manufacturers they carry. Also companies like Lawko and Thoratex can have visual representation on the website instead of just in store. Finally the thing that makes all this work is with the point of contact at woodyou.com. The central point of contact at woodyou.com is what brings the individual stores together as one cohesive family of quality and high standards of customer services. While it’s great to be able to contact a local store with questions, it’s even more vital this day and age to have a central place for customers to basically praise on even vent about their experience at individual Wood You stores, and the blog is it. This is the best way to easily find a reliable review of Wood You stores, and a quick central poll of how customers felt about there experience in their local Wood You. I've been with Wood You for 4 years. -------------------------------------------------- Response to Ronald: Ronald, Well said sir. I think you will find that the website changes we are in the process of making will directly deal with many of the observations you have made. Nice to hear from you . . . don't be a stranger to the blog! Regards, Brett Blankenship