Dear Borders: I hate you
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Dear Borders (and Starbucks subidary Seattle’s Best Coffee),
You have a lovely book store. Quite lovely.
I love the books you sell. I love the music you play. I love the coffee you serve. I love the Moleskine Notebooks you sell. Everything about your store tailors itself perfectly to people like me. You strive to make a person feel intellectual and important, and that is marketed almost flawlessly.
You seem to have forgotten one key demographic, however.
If a tech-savvy web developer wants to go and play with his newly-developed web design skills he obtained from books out of your technology section, he is free to bring his laptop into your lovely café. Awesome. You even offer power outlets. All the sweeter.
So, he decides to bring his laptop in one day to play with his newly purchased python web development book. He connects to your aptly named “Borders” network, and types “http://google.com” into his address bar, excited to be connected to his world in such a convenient location.
His face of joy then abruptly changes, however, when he realizes that he has to fork out SEVEN DOLLARS to use the network.
Seven Dollars.
You could feed a starving child in Africa for a WEEK with $7.
There is no justification. There is no excuse. This is downright stupid on your part.
Do you have any idea how much business you are turning down by doing this? If your stores offered free wifi, chances are, I’d be there three to four times every week, buying coffee every time, and most likely a book every other time. That is a LOT of business. And there are many more people like me. Many more. People like me love your stores. We love the atmosphere. We love the books. We love the knowledge. We love the Moleskines.
And we also love the internet. Apparently, more than you know.
I understand that you have an agreement with AT&T, and i’m sure they have wonderful salesman that assure that you are offering a service to your employees. They are wrong. Very wrong.
I know for a fact that I’d be a customer time and time again if you offered this service for free. And I’m sure your café and book sales would go up at least 15%. From what I understand, your profits are decreasing heavily at the moment. I believe your stock is currently worth $3.34 a share. Impressive.
So what do you have to lose?
In the meantime, I’ll be taking my daily $7 coffee excursions to Panera, where wifi is free.
Kindest Regards,
Kenneth Reitz
Border’s Respnse
Thank you for contacting Borders Customer Care regarding Wifi service. We welcome your comments, as we rely on feedback from customers to improve on the services and products we provide.
Borders stores will be offering free Wifi service and all of the stores will have it by mid October. We appreciate your positive comments about Borders stores. We are always glad to hear from customers, but it is especially nice when a happy customer takes the time to let us know that they’re enjoying the rewards and services we offer.
If you have any other questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Kathy Borders Rewards Customer Care
My Reaction
Well, I didn’t see that coming.
I love the way you worded this. It's a great blog post, on a simple frustration, and yet I was interested enough to read the entire thing. And for a non-computer whiz like me, that's amazing, haha. =P
Borders (as well as other companies such as hotels, etc. that offer WiFi for a fee) is way behind the times. If they make you pay for the Internet service, then they're not generating business, they're losing it, as you pointed out. If they want to catch up to 2009 and gain more customers, they had better stop charging for WiFi. They seem like they want to be, what with selling the new Sony Readers and the Magic Bookshelf® on their Web site. The Web site is pretty darn cool…but seven whole dollars for WiFi?? Come on man…get with the times!
Well said. I'm on your side, Kenneth.
Free wifi is on its way! Borders will begin to roll out in all stores in a few weeks. Stay tune!
Where'd you hear this from?
not totally apropo, but i'm against free wifi.
My wife and I went out for cappucino's a few nights ago. We had to try three different shops before we could find an open table. All the tables in the first two (and most in the third) had exactly one person sitting at them. Everybody had a laptop and a cold cup of old coffee. Most had headphones on. Makes the coffee shops feel totally unsocial.
Our local Barnes and Noble (which includes a Starbucks) has free wifi. Oddly enough, provided by AT&T.
Are you sure it's free?
I can double check, but I'm pretty sure I remember “Free Wifi proudly provided by AT&T” or some such. I'm sure B&N is paying for it, but I remember being pretty impressed they were offering free wifi.
If it's like my Borders, then AT&T does offer wifi, but they want you
to pay 5-10 dollars to use it.
“So what do you have to loose?”
cough lose cough , carry on , and I agree with you.
Oh, totally agree. for people who don't get it: how would you feel if a restaurant you go to blocked cell phone access unless you paid them $5 for the privilege of using your phone? Before you go all out and claim that wifi isn't free and they should charge you, neither is water. A store could charge you for tap water. But they don't, because their customers would just think they're greedy bastards and this business would die. Likewise wifi.
Barnes and Noble recently, (within the last month) switched from paid to free wifi.
I was in a new Barnes and Noble at the time and I thought it was just that new store,
but a quick search found an article announcing that wifi was now free at all of
Barnes and Noble stores.
Yeah, when wi-fi isn't free at an establishment, I pretty much get pissed. Lol
I need to update this. They responded to me. Turns out they are going to offer it free starting next month.
I need to update this. They responded to me. Turns out they are going to offer it free starting next month.