The Kroger Family Effect

Welcome to the Kroger family where everyone is treated like family.

The announcement plays between songs. The tribal belonging circuit fires at the word family. And then something slightly below conscious awareness recognizes the gap between what the word promises and what the experience delivers — the self checkout that replaced three employees, the hold music when you call about a problem — and the tribal alarm fires in the opposite direction.

I was told I was family. I am being processed.

The question worth sitting with as a business owner — are your customers proud to say they use you? Do they mention your name at dinner parties or do they go quiet? Do they champion being your client or do they play the ostrich — head down, not mentioning it?

The Brand Champion and the Ostrich Client are two ends of the same spectrum. The distance between them is almost always the gap between what you promised and what you delivered. Not the product gap. The human gap.