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November 14, 2002
The Image Issue
By QBlog in Quixtar
Quixtar has an image problem. I know this. Anyone who denies this is fooling themselves. I've spoken to may people who wrinkle their faces in disgust at the mere mention of Quixtar. Those who don't react negatively usually do so because they've never heard of Quixtar and once they make the Amway connection then the face wrinkling begins. This isn't true of everyone but it seems that overwhelmingly people have a negative opinion of Quixtar.
Why is this?
Most of these people have never used Quixtar and are unfamiliar with its business, services or products. So then why the reaction? One word: REPUTATION. Microsoft has a reputation among many as being the big mean bully that crushes competition. Exxon has the reputation of being the bad old oil company that wants to pollute the oceans and rivers and air. Phillip Morris has the reputation of wanting to kill people for profits. All these businesses have a bad reputation but there is one distinction between all these businesses and Quixtar. They are all doing something publicly to change the reputation. Quixtar is not.
Quixtar relies on individuals (often inexperienced individuals) to build its brand and enhance its reputation. I can't argue that this doesn't work, because it does. But I can argue that this might not work as well as alternatives. Instead of appealing to the masses Quixtar appeals to a small segment and then influences that segment to become fiercely loyal customers. There is nothing wrong with this but it doesn't do much to improve the reputation of the business outside of the customer base.
Without going into all the reasons why Quixtar has a bad reputation I will just say that the fact is that it does suffer from a negative perception (or maybe it feeds off of this perception? more on that later) and the corporate mindset is to do nothing to combat this perception and instead rely on word of mouth and successful customers to change predjudice.