I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not just bad news for John Flanner, it’s really bad news for Brookfield as well. That pocket of Bluemound Road has been heavily hit.
See also: Flanners Home Entertainment is Closed and My Experience with Flanners Home Entertainment.
Your “sorry to hear that?” Please. Well Cindy, your paranoia of being “treated like a girl”, and thinking people are constantly taking advantage of you, or “you are being lied to” should really serve you well in the future with Best Buy, or maybe Wal-Mart as your main retailer. Have fun with them, but possibly if you would have bought something from them, instead of using all of their services and knowledge, and then taking your business to a “national” retailer, they might still be in business. Enjoy the ghost town of Bluemound Road, and the increase in your taxes! How’s that “Drill baby drill” bandwagon working for you?
I had a great experience at Best Buy, thank you very much.
Wow. Cranky much?
Thats great for you Cindy, I’m so happy you found a FEMALE face to help you, as opposed to a saleMAN, gee, I always thought they were SALES PEOPLE, since I have no pre-conceived bias based on that person’s sex. I’m sure the President of Best Buy will call you minutes after you post a complaint about his (or her) company.
And offer to hook up the system you bought at ANOTHER retailer for FREE.
And maybe you should inquire about the FREE home consultation you took advantage of from Flanner’s. Oh, that’s right, Best Buy won’t do that for free either, since they don’t have any designers, but they will be more than happy to send out the “Geek Squad” for a charge.
But they do have some peppy part-timers who can read the signs on the merchandise for you. Just wait till you have a problem, then the satisfaction of the low price will wear off quite quickly (Press one for English, press 2 to be put in voice mail hell, press 3 to get hung up on, press 4 to talk to the tattooed, pin cushion slacker from…you get the idea) Until then, Enjoy!
Actually, I think they will come to the house for a consult. I’m a Silver Rewards member.
It seems you are unhappy about something. I’m sorry. I wish you the best.
Not angry Cindy, more “sad” would be the appropriate term. Another “local” long-time (over113 years) retailer gone by the wayside, due to the banking climate we are in right now. Remember Highland, and Circuit City? They rolled up and left town, leaving many consumers in the lurch with product issues, they had low prices and low quality goods, but not much loyalty or history in our state. The same can be said for your local pharmacy, hardware store, and so many other family owned and operated businesses. Try getting BB to sponsor your local little league team, donate to your women’s clubs, or care much about what happens outside of their store location. Eventually, your only option is to go to a warehouse club, pick out your box, and slug it to your car yourself. Good luck getting it working and hooked-up, and God forbid you have any questions or problems, since you are on your own. When are people going to wake up and realize they are selling out to companies that have no interest or investment in the community, at the expense of people who actually live in your city, pay taxes, employ local workers (at a decent, living wage), and have a conscience about how they do business and treat their workforce? I guess that’s what capitalism is all about these day, and you can have it.
Sorry, Lance. For some reason you ended up in spam for a while.
What I don’t understand is why you’re acting like Flanner’s closing is my problem. Would you care to enlighten me?
We bought from Flanners (and Flanners and Hafsoos) for many, many years, including our complete family room TV/surround sound and all related components. I felt it was worth more $$$ to pay for expertise and knowledgeable assistance in making a selection. However, on a more recent visit, they did not sell the size HDTV we needed, and we definitely felt unwelcome, since we weren’t buying a $ 50,000 home theater. We’ve purchased elsewhere since.
While I too don’t like the idea of a local business going away, I believe Lance your emotions are misplaced. Customer is #1. If Cindy, or any other customer, doesn’t like they way they are treated, then they’ll go somewhere else. Count me in the same group that received less than cordial treatment when shopping there.
In reality, Flanners made a bad business decision by not diversifying. The owner of ABT said it well. Audio/video equipment is low margin in today’s market, you need to supplement it. Flanners only supplement was expertise and installation. The housing market tanks, and next thing you know those wonderfully lucrative installs are gone. They had nothing to fall back on. Good businesses diversify and change, that’s how they become great businesses. Flanners looks to not have.
There is a bit of a dual standard here though I must admit. We can’t buy buy at Best Buy in lieu of Flanners, yet pan people for eating at a Flemings, etc… in lieu of a locally owned restaurant
Well, at least Flemings does give back to the community. And Lance is a bit off, through their community grants and @15 program Best Buy does invest in the community as well.
Well you’ll find me shopping at Best Buy, but I swear you’ll never see me at Flemings. Even I have my limits!
Well Lance I understand how you feel. I’ve known you for years and understand where your passion comes from. Lance we have to understand everyone is not a Flanners customer and that’s ok. When this all blows over we have to look at the market and decide where we need to be in it. We can offer better service better then anyone out there. Thank God I had the pleasure of working in Chicago for six years. The mentality is night and day. You see in Chicago a client or customer can appreciate better products that are more upscale then others. In Milwaukee I find people want the best for less with no loyalty at all. If a product is 10 cents cheaper 30 miles away they will drive to save that 10 cents. And it’s the fault of the advertisements to bring customers in. You see everything you read today in the adds are either “free this” or “free that” or “Low Price Leader”. Milwaukee market loves this kind of stuff. Milwaukee is the most cheap or frugal market in this country. I know this because I traveled and listen to what people say about Milwaukee… Great food, Good beer, Cheap people. How do we change that? We can’t. We just have to make sure we serve the customers that are loyal to Flanners ten times better then before. Offer great products and service for customers who appreciate good things. I tell you one thing Lance. It’s hard trying to find another company that provided the service Flanners gave. If we come back I will make sure our customers are well taken care of. I do miss them and all of you guys I worked with. Forgive me for any typing errors if any but this was just a quick inquiry. I hope I didn’t offend anyone.
I’ve lived in the Milwaukee area for just over 13 years and I latched onto Flanner’s shortly after I moved in. I’m not a big blogger, but I have a few comments and observations that I’d like to share based on my personal experience over the years.
First, I need to be honest and state that while I shopped at Flanner’s a lot, I didn’t always purchase there. I am fairly knowledgeable about audio-video equipment and I always do a lot of research before purchasing. I also do a lot of shopping around, and I am often the bane of salespeople. I like to change settings, mess with controls, and generally screw-up the showroom condition of everything I audition. Quite often, I already know what I want when I walk into a store. If Flanner’s didn’t have it, and couldn’t provide me with a sufficiently demonstrable equal, I bought it somewhere else.
I never walked out of Flanner’s because I was angry, because I received poor service, or because of price. I can’t say that I always walked out of there with the rock-bottom, lowest price, but I never got gouged and it was always within a few bucks of the mega-stores. I preferred to buy from a local shop and the marginal “premiums” I may have paid over the years were well worth it for the information and overall shopping experience I received. My family and friends were surprised to hear that Flanner’s was price-competitive with the big box stores, and maybe if they had done a better job of publicizing their price-matching policy they would have made a bigger dent in the commodity pricing market.
On those occasions when I did not come in with a solid idea of what I wanted, I generally found the Flanner’s staff helpful and my experiences were typically – although not universally – positive. Let’s be honest here, you are not going to mesh with every salesperson you encounter. One or two of their salespeople were arrogant. A couple were inadequately informed. (When I’m shopping, I ask a lot of questions to which I already know the answers. If a salesperson gets the answers wrong, I won’t work with that person.) By and large, however, I found the staff friendly, helpful, approachable, knowledgeable, and not overly pushy. (Paul, Lance, Emmanuel – thumbs-up, and thank you.)
A couple of examples are worth repeating. Many years ago, I was in the market for an upscale, large-sized CRT television. I purchased a model from Brand X and couldn’t get it to look right at home. I had a least four lengthy phone conversations with my salesperson trying to change settings to get the picture the way I wanted it and nothing worked. Flanner’s sent out a calibrator, then exchanged the unit for an identical TV, only to find that the issues were inherent with the design. They exchanged it for a similar unit from Brand Y and, when that unit did not perform to my satisfaction, they exchanged it again for a unit from Brand Z, which was what I should have purchased in the first place. This is a great example of putting customer satisfaction ahead of merely closing a sale.
Fast-forward to early 2009. I was finally ready to take the plunge into flat panel television and, after a great deal of research, decided that the latest generation 50-inch Pioneer Kuro plasma would be the front-runner in an audition war that would include Panasonic and Samsung plasmas, and Samsung LCDs. I knew that the Kuro models had been, or were close to being, discontinued, so I headed off to Flanner’s only to discover that they no longer had the 50-inch version in stock. I spent quite a bit of time discussing my purchasing goals with Paul (who had sold me a subwoofer a few years previously) and we both came to the conclusion that the Kuro would probably end up being the television I wanted. The 60-inch would be a divorce-inducing match for my room, and Paul could not determine when – if ever – Flanner’s would receive more 50-inch Kuros. Paul stated his opinion that if I was looking for features A, B, C, and D, then I should probably buy the Pioneer if I could find one. I spent over five hours over the following week auditioning alternatives at Flanner’s, during which time Paul and Emmanuel swapped cables and input sources so I could audition the brands they sold, even though they knew I was leaning toward a model they could not sell me. In the end I bought the Pioneer from the Evil Empire, although I purchased the stand from Flanner’s. It is hard to find fault with that kind of patience and service in the face of an almost guaranteed no-sale.
Despite that positive press, I have to admit that I echo some of the other bloggers’ comments that Flanner’s appeared to drift too far into dedicated home theater and custom installation over the past few years. Display devices dominated the sales floor and audition rooms, and the selection of source components, receivers, and speakers became more limited. I also found that fewer and fewer of the components were actually hooked-up. This was great if I wanted to pull a receiver out of the rack to look at the input/output layout, but terrible if I wanted to hear the difference between a Denon and an Integra receiver, or test their ergonomics. I had a better chance of actually auditioning a component at American than at Flanner’s, which is pretty sad.
I also noticed that recently, with some exceptions, the salespeople did a lot more “milling about” than actually helping people. If I had a question, I had to go find someone to ask. Maybe they had received feedback that they had been too pushy and the pendulum had swung too far in the other direction, but I sensed that most of the salespeople would rather walk around looking busy than ask if you had a question. Maybe they were actually busy with larger-budget custom install customers, but the overall effect was somewhat surreal – a big fancy store filled with wonderful toys and people orbiting around each other without actually speaking to one another.
Finally, I got the sense that the salespeople were having a difficult time keeping up with rapidly changing technology. I recently asked a salesperson if a given BluRay player would internally decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and output them via PCM over HDMI, and the person looked at me like I had three heads. I eventually found a salesperson that could answer this question (along with many others), but this is the kind of response I would expect from the Evil Empire, not Flanner’s. I know that I’m a dork and most people would have no idea what I’m talking about, but I expect more from a dedicated audio-video store. My expectation is that the college student at the big box retailer will not be able to help me, so I’d better know exactly what I want. My expectation was that the Flanner’s staff could help me when I wasn’t sure.
In the end, my overall reaction to Flanner’s demise is disappointment without surprise. I mourn their passing like I mourn the acceptance of mp3-quality sound and $199 LCD-quality video. I am disheartened by the prospect of buying my next receiver from the Evil Empire or, worse yet, not being able to find something I want at all. My wife and I used to buy our and our kids’ books at Harry Schwartz, now it’s Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. I’ll support my local coffee shop and LeDuc’s frozen custard and Brennan’s over Starbucks and Culvers and Pick’N’Save as long as I can, but how much longer will that last? We live in an increasingly commoditized society where value is judged solely by price. The inevitability of it all leaves me feeling a bit empty. I wish everyone formerly associated with Flanner’s the best of luck.