Delivering on your brand promise at every point of contact (EPOC) is something we preach at Holland-Mark. It’s not enough to create clever marketing campaigns or design brilliant product packaging . . . a brand must deliver a truly remarkable experience with each and every customer or prospect interaction. We all know this but I fear we underestimate just how imperative it is.

Case in point, on Saturday I tried to return a Nintendo Wii game I had bought – in December ’09 – for my seven-year-old son. It never worked properly so it sat on a shelf and we forgot about it. I trekked to Best Buy with the unrealistic hope that they would exchange it – kind of unrealistic, but, honestly, it had been used a couple times, not worked, and been set aside. Not surprisingly, the customer service representative at the Best Buy counter said there was nothing he could do.

Ten minutes later we were at the GameStop counter down the street. I told the same story I told at Best Buy, making sure the GameStop folks understood that we had not purchased the game from them. The GameStop employee said he could take it on trade – they actually take trades of damaged games. As my son and I were contemplating this offer, the GameStop manager swooped in with another copy of the exact same game.

“We have a used copy here” she said. “You can have it.” Wow.

Guess what my seven-year-old said?

“GameStop is cool, and I guess Best Buy isn’t the best.”