It
has been a long time. I have been
working with a start up company and really enjoying working with the great
people at this firm. BUT. Time to get back to the blog. There has
been a lot written about Apple and the experience they provide for their
customers. The launch of the new I Phone
proved again they are the leaders in tech but it is amazing how their stores
are doing. If you don’t believe me,
check out their sales per square foot numbers.
Over $6,000 per square. Try
getting that in your box. Why is the
question? We always try to model best
practices or at least that is a minimum we should do as leaders of our
companies. Innovation and creating for
the future is also critical. Check out
the HBR blog on the three boxes for a CEO.
What we need to focus on now is what the experience the customer has
when they are in our location.
Questions, questions. How is the
curb appeal? What do they see when they
first walk in? Are they greeted? What is the appearance of the sales
assistant? Does the assistant have the
product knowledge they need? Do they
up-sell without being obnoxious? Does
your team have the value added or servant leadership mission statement
ingrained in their heads? And most of
all, is it a happy store? I spend so
much time harping on this I need to write a whole blog about it. Happy stores create happy employees and happy
customers. If your store doesn’t meet
these criteria you have some work to do.
Once we get past the basics then we can tune the customers’
experience. What are customers looking
for now. If we look at Apple, they have hands
on experience with items that make life “cooler”. Many of the items are not exclusive but
customers prefer Apple’s solution.
Why? Because it is cooler. But why is it cooler? Because for the most part it looks cooler and
the people that use them or explain them are “cool people”. People feel cool when they leave and the
emotion continues when they use the product.
The emotion is anchored to the product.
The only problem Apple has is that is not a consumable product. That is why they have to keep coming out with
new products and new applications to keep revenues growing. Back to your store. How can you improve customer experience and
increase sales and profits? One of my
suggestions is to open up your store.
Many retailers believe in the pile it high and watch it fly
merchandising philosophy. If you are in
bulk business or close outs that may work fine but in standard retail or the
new retail, it is a killer. No one wants
to walk into a location and feel suffocated.
It amazes me how many retailers crowd their counter with crap. Many counters have so much stuff on them that
you can’t even see the cashier. Clear it
out! Next, consider having someone on
the floor that greets and assists customers.
Your customers will freak out at first because they are not used to
being taken care of. We have become so
used to a self serve economy that human contact scares us. That does not mean we still do not need it,
even crave it. Remember Alvin Toffler
and Third Wave and Future Shock? His
words still ring true and we actually see it happening now. People may embrace technology and the
isolation it creates but still seek and need the “soft touch” in their
lives. As our stores become more complex
with food service and other services that we provide, many customers are
intimidated. Do you have a coffee
program that offers 10 different core coffees and 100 condiments? Nice.
How much is used? At NACS Coca
Cola was demonstrating their 125 fountain.
125 options? A little overkill in
my opinion. I did a survey after I tried
it and I told Coke that I was not impressed.
I felt that such a machine would create a bottleneck at the fountain and
I would not be able to serve customers.
Only one customer at a time? Big
problems. Look at ATM or Redbox to see
the lines they create. We are in the
convenience business and customers do not find lines convenient. Look at fast food drive through. How many businesses are going to remote kiosk
or offering I Pads to customers so they can process their orders more
efficiently? All are our attempts to
provide the customer more options but nothing is more helpful than a well
trained employee. I watched a webinar
recently and it reminded me that the primary responsibility of a employee in a
retail setting is to SELL. Technology
can help with passive options for the customer but we need to embrace the best
of both. Have a well trained employee
that has technology to process the order quickly. I believe that is where we need to go and
with clean, open stores that are happy stores, we will go far. Take care and be well.
