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Category: Customer Expectations

The Conundrum of Choice

I used to advertise the heck out of the fact Toy House had the largest selection of toys under one roof of any store in the area. In our heyday we had over twice the selection of a Toys R Us and five times the selection of the Walmarts, Targets, and Kmarts of the world. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when bigger was better, this seemed to be the perfect calling card.

And it was—at least for drawing traffic.

Paradox of Choice cover.jpgSometimes, however, the super large selection was also a detriment to sales. Having too many options can lead to Analysis Paralysis. Barry Schwartz called this the Paradox of Choice (in the book by the same name).

While we like having freedom of choice, when we have too many choices, the process of selection bogs down.

I was thinking about this the other day while I was out shopping. I needed a closet deodorizer. The store I was in offered nine or ten different options. I had no clue. They all seemed to do about the same thing. I didn’t recognize any of the brands so I made my decision based on price.

I eliminated the most expensive item figuring that it probably wasn’t any better than the others, especially since it didn’t have a brand name I recognized. I threw out the least expensive item figuring the company probably cut corners to make it, so it likely wouldn’t be as effective or last as long. I then chose something toward the bottom of the prices left, figuring they were all similar, why spend any more?

Is that the way you want customers shopping in your store?

It was the perfect example of the paradox of choice. Had there only been two or three items, I would have studied the differences between them and chosen a product based on features and benefits. But with nine items, instead of seeing differences, I only saw similarities, so I based my decision on brand and price.

This is the Trader Joe’s philosophy …

Limit the selection to make it easier for the customer to choose based on the criteria of the product.

From this you could conclude that it is better to curate a great selection than to just offer more than your competitors. In many ways you would be right.

There is still something to be said, however, for having the largest selection. It is and always has been a traffic draw. Stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Staples, and JoAnn’s still rely on the perception of unlimited choices to drive their business.

The trick to making it work is having a staff that can curate your large selection that drew your customers in into a smaller selection from which they can make a choice.

I worked with my staff to do the following:

  • Ask questions why the customer wants a particular item. What are they trying to accomplish?
  • Curate our selection down to the two or three best “solutions”
  • Always show the best solution first, regardless of price or budget. Often a customer will bust the budget for the item that best fits her needs

When you have too many choices, while the traffic it draws is nice, you’re forcing your customers to shop based on brand and price (and often the lower prices win).

When you curate the choices, you help your customers shop based on features and benefits (and often the item offering the most benefits wins).

See the difference?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you are a smaller store, by all means curate the selection in advance, but if you have the space, don’t be afraid to have several choices based on the different “solutions” they provide. Just make sure your staff knows how to curate the choices down for each individual customer. Remember, everyone walking through your door has a different problem to solve.

Inefficiencies Can Derail the Experience

The line didn’t seem that long. I’ve been in longer lines waiting for food. The menu showed three lunch options, likely for efficiency’s sake. I expected the line to move along quite rapidly.

Twenty-five minutes later the line felt more like eternity.

There was one line and two windows (which is the most efficient way even if it “feels” longer). That wasn’t the problem. Shortly into our wait we saw the problem. Once you ordered at one of the two windows you had to wait to the side of the window until your tray arrived several minutes later.

With every group that ordered, I watched them do the dance with the next in lines as the food trays were shepherded out the window. Whose order was whose? Which way do I go? How do I get past the crowd at the window to get to the seating area? Where is the ketchup stand?

The hardest part was the watching and waiting, seeing there was a more efficient way.

With two windows it would have been easy to take the order at the first window and pick up the food at the second window. The line headed toward the first window anyway. The second window was closer to the ketchup and the seating. Those who had ordered wouldn’t feel like they were inconveniencing the line behind them while they waited for their food.

This was one place where an assembly line style of serving would have made total sense.

Here’s the kicker. I was standing in line at the lunch stand at Greenfield Village, part of the Henry Ford Museum campus. I’m pretty sure Henry Ford is kinda known for taking the assembly line concept to a whole new level?

One would think they could take some inspiration from the man whose name was on the building.

The lesson in all this is that you should always be looking at ways to improve what you do. Find the inefficiencies and decide whether they are better or worse for the customer. If worse, look around you for inspiration how to fix them.

Henry Ford got his inspiration for the assembly line from the Chicago meat cutters and their disassembly line. When I needed a better way to hire and train my staff I got my inspiration from the potter. When radio stations had unsold ad slots, they learned from the airlines “standby” passengers.

Your business has inefficiencies, some that quietly annoy your customers. The lunch line at Greenfield Village fortunately wasn’t enough to ruin an otherwise fabulous visit to a fabulous place, but it was enough to make me write about it. And that should be reason enough for you to find those annoyances in your business and clean them up.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There is an ice cream place here in town with the same two-window inefficiency. A clerk leans through a tiny window to write your order on a scratch pad. Then you step to the side and wait while she takes the next person’s order. Two or three orders later, there is a crowd hovering around the window waiting to grab whatever cold creamy concoction might get thrust out. Order at one window, pick it up at the next. The fast food joints have all learned this. Why can’t the others?

PPS If you get a chance to visit Greenfield Village (and I highly recommend it!!) make sure you stop by the Working Farm. It doesn’t get the hype of the Model T Ride or Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park recreation, but it was my favorite stop in the village. (Just plan a few extra minutes for the lunch line near Main Street.)

Trying to Give Great Service is NOT the Same as Actually Doing It

Ever have that experience where you know what someone is trying to do, but they just keep missing the mark? You want to give them points for trying, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and atom bombs.

I had that experience last week at a Barnes & Noble store.

The store was having a sale. Several tables right inside the front door and up that middle aisle were clearly marked 50% off. A few tables on either side had new releases at 20% off. The staff was obviously pumped up for the sale.

I was greeted at the door by an associate who thanked me for coming in (good so far). She excitedly told me all about the sale (also good). But then she committed the one blunder too many sales associates do. She asked me,

“Is there anything I can help you find?”

I was just inside the door. My eyes had barely adjusted from the sunlight to the interior lights. I was greeted and told to browse all these tables for great deals. But before I could even approach the first table I was asked to stop browsing and start finding the item I came in to buy.

The problem with asking, “Is there anything I can help you find?” is it is the first cousin of, “Can I help you?” It causes a knee-jerk reaction that caused me to say, “No thanks, I’m just here to browse.”

Let me repeat that in case it wasn’t clear …

I just told a sales clerk out loud that I did NOT plan to buy anything, I only came in to browse.

I reinforced it in her ears and in my mind. I took buying off the table before I even began browsing.

Obviously the gal was trying to be helpful. In her mind she was giving me awesome customer service. The greeting and mentioning the sales table were a good start, but then she ruined it with a deal-killing question.

Worse yet, she didn’t realize she was asking this of a guy. When guys shop, once we get what we came for, we’re out of there. Browsing comes to a complete halt once we get what we wanted.

It would have been better if she left me to browse after mentioning the sale and then approached me later. Give me a moment to catch my breath and take in my surroundings. Give me a moment to plan a course of action. Give me a moment to collect my own thoughts.

Instead she pounced and turned me into a liar or a non-shopper—neither of which are good.

It wasn’t just her. Four times over the next ten minutes I had associates approach me and ask if I was finding everything okay. It was getting creepy. I almost wanted to walk away from the sale tables just to get away from them.

One even asked me if I wanted him to price out the book in my hand. It was clearly marked with the price, and the sign clearly said 50% off marked price. (I was in a bookstore so you would think he would assume I could read and do the simple math?)

In their minds, these associates were thinking they were giving me great customer service. Instead they were creeping me out. I knew it was a direction from above, too, because the manager approached me not once but twice with, “Are you finding everything okay?”

A LITTLE FOREPLAY FIRST

Here is where they were missing the boat. The first gal notwithstanding, the others all approached me while I was perusing the sale tables. That isn’t where I would expect to find what I came in to buy, so it wasn’t even an appropriate question there. The question would make more sense if I was scanning titles in a particular section.

Even then it would have been better if they first asked a question or said something to engage me in conversation. They could have used phrases like:

  • Who’s your favorite author?
  • What are you reading currently?
  • I see you were looking at a spy novel. Have you read the Red Sparrow trilogy?

I would have answered those questions. We would have had a dialogue, a conversation, the beginning of a relationship. I would have felt they were actually interested in my reading habits.

I would have believed they could do more than just point me to an item I already knew I wanted.

Isn’t that the point of selling? Isn’t your job to gain the trust of the customer and then help her solve problems? Anyone can lead a customer to a product they already knew they wanted. A true salesperson shows you the stuff you didn’t yet know you absolutely had to own.

You’ll never get there asking, “Are you finding everything okay?”

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I applaud them for trying. Unfortunately, without proper sales training, they’ll try this for several weeks, see no improvement and probably fall back into their old habits. Worse yet, they’ll think approaching the customer is overrated and pooh-pooh any further suggestions otherwise. “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

PPS I did actually engage the fifth time I was asked if I was finding everything. I told the guy they didn’t have my favorite game in stock. He asked which one? I told him Honga, one of the HABA games I sell. (It really is my favorite right now.) He looked it up and is going to bring a couple in now. So at least I got that out of the experience.

Your Signs Tell Customers More Than You Think

I snapped two pictures of signs recently. I probably could have taken several. Apparently proof-reading is a thing of the past.

One sign I drive by regularly is on too busy of a road to safely snap the pic. It says “Comeing Soon.” I cringe every time I pass it. I know two of my regular readers who cringed just reading it here.

TYPOS/GRAMMAR

I took the following pic on a recent trip to Las Vegas:

I’m not sure whether auto-correct or the sign maker doesn’t know the word tarot. Maybe there is a new type of cards made out of potatoes? The real question is, would you trust the readings of a psychic who couldn’t foresee this typo on her sign?

Typos and grammar mistakes are so common on signs now that we almost take them for granted. In fact, some might argue that the mistakes make you look at the sign longer, making the sign more effective.

I disagree.

I’m not stopping for a psychic card reading, no matter whether it is fried, mashed, hashed, or julienned. I don’t trust her. I also lost trust in KFC the other day while reading a grammatically incorrect sign behind the counter. It just set me off.

Those signs are the easy ones to fix. Proof-read them. Give them to a writer to proof-read them. Then proof-read them again. Don’t trust your print-shop people or your computer to fix any mistakes you’ve made. You have to fix the easy stuff yourself.

If you can’t get the easy stuff right, your customers won’t trust you with the more difficult stuff.

The second sign I want to show you is a little different. I found this on the door of a McDonald’s restaurant.

This sign has a different message (or two).

On the surface it basically says to anyone under 18, “you are being judged and labeled by the actions of someone else who happens to share one characteristic of yours—age.”

The second message, however, may be the more damaging. To everyone over 18 it also says, “this establishment gets visited by young hooligans and we have no way of stopping them short of trying to keep them from coming in—eat at your own risk.”

Do you see the problem?

One picture I wish I would have taken was a toy store I visited years ago. The front door was covered in small hand-written signs each starting with the word No. “No Public Restrooms.” “No Pets Allowed.” “No Backpacks” “No more than 2 unaccompanied minors at a time.” “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service, No Exceptions.”

You couldn’t even see in through the door. You just were bombarded with handwritten placards saying No, No, No, No, No.

The last word any retailer should want rattling around in a customer’s brain is the word No.

Whether the McDonald’s management or the “No” toy store understand it or not, they are changing the emotions of the customers entering their establishments.

The two questions you should ask before posting any sign are:

  1. Is the sign free from typos or grammatical errors?
  2. How does the sign make my customers feel?

Retail is a game of managing emotions. Happy customers who trust you will spend way more than uncomfortable customers who don’t.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There are positive ways, even fun ways, for any store to post all its restrictions. “Please leave your backpacks up front where our staff will guard them with their lives.” “Our carpet cleaner thanks you for leaving your food and drinks outside.” “For our customers who have allergies, we thank you for leaving pets outside.” Manage the emotions to win the sales.

9 Out of 10 People Don’t Recommend Your Store

I think a lot about Market Share. Maybe too much. I find it the most fascinating piece of data you can track because it tells you so much more about how you are performing than just sales, profits, or cash flow.

For one, it tells you how well you are competing in your market. If your share is growing, you’re obviously doing something right. If you’re losing share—even if your business is growing—you have a leak in your ship that needs fixing.

It also helps you focus your marketing. Once you realize that 9 out of 10 people in your area don’t shop in your store (results may vary but most indie retailers have less than 10% share of their market), you can hyper-focus your marketing on just one of those nine “people.” Win that one and you’ll double your sales.

Make the “one” the loudest voice in the crowd.

Let’s talk about those nine people for a moment.

I was at an event recently that had a panel of expecting moms. They were asked where they went for information to buy baby products. All six answered Friends and Online Reviews. None of them answered Sales Staff in a Store. None of them said Advertisements for Baby Stores. None of them mentioned Informational Fliers at the doctor’s office. Not one of them discussed Emails from brands or stores. They barely talked about Instagram influencers (and not in a positive way).

Friends and Online Reviews.

Even the online reviews didn’t get a favorable viewing. Most of the panel said they didn’t fully trust online reviews but would read the negative reviews in detail. They trusted most the information from friends who already had children.

From this panel you might conclude that the most important form of advertising for your business is the word-of-mouth referral from your happy customers. You would be right.

Yet nine out of ten people don’t refer your business to their friends. That’s a lot of friends telling their friends to go elsewhere. Not one member of our panel had visited an independent specialty baby store. Only a handful had gone to a Buy Buy Baby chain store. Most did their shopping/registering at Target because nine out of ten of their friends went there.

It didn’t help that there was only one indie specialty store in their town and it had a limited selection. I would have loved to see the responses of a panel like this in a town with a powerful indie store. I think Sales Staff at a Specialty Store might have made the list of trusted sources.

As it is, the lesson for all of us is simple. You have to give that one out of the ten such an amazing experience that her voice drowns out the other nine when the subject comes up where to shop.

Conversely, you cannot allow one bad experience to walk out your door. You’ll be dead to her circle of friends. Yeah, you might have to eat some crow from time to time, but it is better to eat the crow now to get the chance to eat the filet later.

Retail is not a money game. It is a game of the heart. Win your customers’ hearts and the money will follow.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Not sure how to calculate your Market Share? Check out the Market Share Diagnostic Tool. It will not only show you how to calculate your Market Share, it will tell you why this is the second most important part of your business to track.

Removing Barriers and Obstacles the Toledo Museum of Art Way

I could probably go back through the records of Toy House and tell you when the first nice Saturday of spring hit every year. You know the day. After a long winter, it is finally sunny and warm enough to not need a coat.

We never had much traffic on that first nice Saturday. People were doing yard work, taking down Christmas lights they had unplugged months before, and pumping air into bike tires that hadn’t seen pavement since Halloween. Our busiest part of the store was the back door where the air compressor sat.

It was the cold, rainy Saturday that followed that was usually our best day.

Last Saturday was one of those cold, rainy days. The temperature hit 41 degrees for the high. The rain was steady all day. I did the other thing you do on cold, rainy spring days when your shopping is done. I went to the Toledo Museum of Art.

If you’re in the area, I highly recommend the TMA. The museum has a fabulous collection including a couple Van Gohs, a couple Renoirs, some amazing sculptures, and a fascinating glass display. It’s fairly easy to find, too. There is a nice parking lot behind the museum that has several covered spaces (perfect on a rainy day) near the back door entrance.

We crossed the street, checked our umbrella and coats, and spent a couple hours lost in the amazement of art. There were docents and security guards at every turn (sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other as they all seemed to know everything about everything) to make the trip more enjoyable.

All of this was quite impressive for a museum where admission is free and parking is only $8.

But before you think this is just a plug for a museum, I want to tell you the part of the story that blew me away. Here are the three key factors to remember so far. It was raining. We walked in the back door. We checked our umbrella because umbrellas are not allowed in the museum.

For those of you not familiar with Toledo, OH, it is known as Glass City. Owens-Corning and Libbey Glass both have their origins here and a long history with Toledo. One of the coolest parts of any trip to the Toledo Museum of Art is right out the front door and across the street at the Glass Pavilion.

Here you can see a demonstration on glass blowing and some of the most beautiful works of glass you can imagine.

Our dilemma was that it was raining and our umbrella was downstairs by the back door.

I stood staring out the front door through the rain to the Glass Pavilion, at which point a security guard handed me a large red golf-style umbrella with the words “Toledo Museum of Art” printed on it. He had a whole rack of them by the door. Across the street I could see a similar rack inside the door of the Glass Pavilion.

We grabbed an umbrella and off we went.

Without the umbrella, we might not have made that trek. It would have involved heading out the back door and walking around a massive building in the rain. Or it would have involved putting raincoats to the test. Not everyone at the museum had a raincoat that day.

Yet the museum director had the foresight to recognize this obstacle, order a bunch of umbrellas, and make it easier for patrons to enjoy all aspects of the museum.

The lesson in this is to look at your business with the same eye. Look for the obstacles and barriers that keep people from shopping at your store. Is it your hours? Is it your location? Is it your lack of parking? Is it your restrictive return policy or the limitations on how people can pay?

The more barriers you can remove, the better.

Change your hours to better accommodate the times your best customers can shop. If parking is an issue, create valet parking (get your neighboring businesses to pitch in because they’ll reap the benefits, too). Change your policies to make it easier for customers to pay.

Every barrier you remove adds to your bottom line—no matter what it costs.

Why? Because of the word-of-mouth. Do things no one else is doing to make it easier for your customers and they will tell their friends. Do the same thing everyone else is doing and there is nothing to say.

In fact, the two questions you should be constantly asking are:

  • What barriers or obstacles keep my store from getting more shoppers and buyers?
  • Does this new policy/procedure/campaign/tool/tech/program make it easier or harder for customers to shop and buy?

The Toledo Museum of Art filled my cold, rainy Saturday with a warm, sunny rainbow of surprise and delight with a simple red umbrella. What can you do for your customers?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The fact it was hard to tell a docent from a security guard because everyone seemed to have so much knowledge was just icing on the cake. I like how the director of this museum thinks.

PPS If your neighborhood shops think valet parking is a good idea, take the lead on this issue and make sure the valet stand is close to your front door and associated with you. That way you reap the full benefits.

Be Yourself, Be a Unicorn!

I love those signs that say, “Be yourself. Unless you can be a Unicorn. Then be a Unicorn.” (Substitute Batman for Unicorn for those who identify that way.)

Be yourself is the best advice I could ever give to any business owner. Know your Core Values, what drives you in your life, and be them so clearly and proudly that everyone knows exactly who you are.

Those who share your values will become lifelong fans and evangelists of your business. You’ll always have a core of supporters.

HABA USA Unicorn Rainbow Beauty

To truly stand out in retail, however, you also have to be a Unicorn. You have to be so different from every other retailer that people believe you to be magical.

I say this in light of the article that came out last month stating that the Retail Apocalypse is still upon us with over 5800 stores closing in 2019 alone (and that’s only through March!)

Before you panic, 2,500 of those stores are Payless Shoes. Another 390 are Family Dollar stores closing after Dollar Tree bought them out. Other big chains with big closures include The Gap, JC Penney’s, Chico’s, and Gymboree.

None of those stores were Unicorns. 

The Gap was the closest, but no one under forty remembers when they made their splash on the retail scene. Their horn fell off decades ago.

The culprit most often blamed is Amazon, followed closely by Millennials. While Millennials probably had a lot to do with Victoria Secret closings (Hey, VS, have you noticed society has mostly shifted away from your idea of sexy lingerie?), they and Amazon are more symptoms than causes of retail store closures.

The real culprit is the stores themselves.

Chain stores are dropping like flies and they only have themselves to blame.

First, we are over-saturated with retail to begin with. Too many chains competing for not enough dollars. The chain stores work on the premise that the more stores they have, the more revenue they would be able to collect to “make it up with volume” which led to rapid growth and expansion well beyond what the market could bear.

Second, these stores invest next to nothing in training for their managers and staff. A couple of my former employees went to work for chain stores and showed me their employee handbooks. Sixteen pages on how to use the time clock and what will happen if you get caught breaking a policy, but not one word on how to create a relationship with a customer or even how to sell.

Third, there is little to differentiate one chain from the next. They all have the same merchandise from the same manufacturers. They all have the same lack of service that begins at the top with poorly trained managers who know nothing about team building, HR, or how to teach and motivate others, let alone how to merchandise and run a customer-centric store. They all fail to grasp how much of the population has moved on from the materialism in the 80’s and 90’s to more sustainable approaches to life. They all think big discounts = loyalty. They all chase the shiny new baubles like omni-channel, big-data, BOPIS, and social media, thinking those will be the big fixes that will help their businesses.

Nothing about any of these stores is or was unique, exciting or magical.

The downside for you is that all of these lousy experiences in other stores are driving customers online and making online shopping more prevalent and convenient.

The upside for you is that it is much easier to become a Unicorn of a store than ever before.

The bar is so low now that stores that care about their customers through their actions and policies stand out like lighthouse beacons on a desolate ocean of crappy retail.

Toys R Us is the only chain store closing where I actually heard customers lamenting the loss. No one is lamenting Payless going away. No one will even remember Charlotte Russ stores once they’re gone (if you even knew they were there). Heck, most people thought JCP was already closed!

Be yourself. But be the most Unicorny version of yourself you possibly can. Amazon is the default when you don’t give your customers a reason to believe in the magic.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If one of your Core Values is Nostalgia, celebrate those nostalgic moments in your customers’ lives with gusto. Ring a 32-pound brass bell on their birthdays and put their picture up on your wall. If one of your Core Values is Education, hit the road and do Free Classes on how to better use the products you sell. If one of your Core Values is Helpful, have a high school kid with a golf umbrella escort customers out to their cars on a rainy day.

PPS If you aren’t well-versed in Team Building, hire someone to help you build your team. (Note: check your local YMCA or Y-Camp.) If you aren’t well-versed in motivating your employees, I suggest you read Drive by Daniel H. Pink or Maestro by Roger Nierenberg. If you aren’t as good at teaching the sales process as you’d like, check out my Free Resources – The Meet-and-Greet, Close the Sale, and How to Push for Yes. The resources are out there to help you grow your horn.

Making the “Experience” Over-the-Top

Last night my bracket got busted. As a diehard University of Michigan Wolverine fan, my NCAA tournament bracket lasts until the Wolverines bow out. (I know, I know. I shouldn’t always pick them to win it all, but then I would have to root for them to lose, and I can’t do that.)

Brackets for the NCAA tournament are fun. They are also an easy tool to implement for a promotion or event in your store.

One year we had a “March Games Madness” where every Friday at Game Night we played four games and voted on the best. After four weeks we had a “Final Four” and in week five we crowned a champion. We had brackets for people to fill out and seedings for the games. Not only was it fun and attracted a decent (and returning) crowd, it gave us fodder for social media marketing. (This game is a “Final Four Game.”)

Another year we set an unofficial world record for having the most people playing the game Snake Oil at one time.

At a Breyer Horse event we had a stick-horse obstacle course complete with a bale of hay and a water element.

For our Disney Princess Day we had a quartet from the local symphony play Disney songs on our stage.

Go big or go home.

Put some kind of Wow Factor into your events and two things will happen. First, your events will get customers talking about your store, coming back more often, and bringing their friends with them.

Second, and more importantly, you will separate yourself from the influence of negative experiences at other brick & mortar stores.

It doesn’t just have to be an event, either. Go big in other ways. I knew a jewelry store that had a $30K diamond engagement ring and special “throne” to sit in to try it on. I just visited a toy store recently with an eight-foot tall Steiff giraffe that sells for $20K.

Take the money from your advertising budget if you have to for a splash item because that’s what those two pieces represent.

Go big in your services, too. Serve food/drinks. Have valet parking. Do a coat check. Have expert demos. Have someone with a large golf umbrella walk customers to their cars on rainy days.

Those are the actions that set you apart, that insulate you from being lumped in with all the other retailers out there. Your toughest competitors now are not the other stores that sell what you sell. Your toughest competitors are the horrible experiences people have at other brick & mortar stores that keep them from shopping in any brick & mortar.

Set yourself apart and you become a category all to yourself, insulated from those negative experiences that drive people away.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Actions speak louder than words. Do these things. Don’t advertise these things. Talking about them makes them less special. Just doing it and letting your customers talk about it is what sets you apart. (Yes, you should advertise your event, but don’t give away all the surprises in how you’re going over-the-top. In time, your customers will be showing up just to see what crazy stunt you’re going to pull off this time.)

Getting Internet Customers Back Into Your Store

I did a mash-up of two presentations at an event for the pet store industry last week. I took elements from Selling in a Showrooming World and Generating Word-of-Mouth and put them into a new presentation we called “Getting Internet Customers Back Into Your Store.”

It worked.

One of the reasons it worked so well was because it went beyond Showrooming. Showrooming is less and less of a thing as people are becoming more and more comfortable with shopping online. Customers used to showroom a lot when they didn’t feel they could trust what they saw online, but easy return policies and trustworthy sites are changing that.

Customers are going online first and staying online to buy.

The real issue today is that many people have become so comfortable with shopping online that it is now the default position. They would rather order it from Amazon than stop in and see you or the product.

That’s scary.

The problem is that you and I are partially to blame. Although roughly half of the population would love to shop for reasons other than price (“trust” and “experience” being the two biggest of those reasons), in the absence of those other reasons, price becomes the default, and, right or wrong, Amazon has won the minds of people believing them to be the best price.

ONE BAD EXPERIENCE SPOILS THE WHOLE BUNCH

The real culprit is the collective experience your customers have in all their brick & mortar shopping. Every time they step foot in a store, that store influences whether they keep shopping brick & mortar or go online.

Yes, you get hurt because JCP didn’t train their sales staff very well, because Macy’s cut back on payroll, because Walmart installed self-checkout stands. Yes, you get hurt by experiences out of your control.

How do you win those customers back that are defaulting to the Internet? By doing the kind of things in your store that get people excited, the kind of things that get people talking about you to their friends.

In short, you do the same things you would do to generate Word-of-Mouth advertising.

GO OVER-THE-TOP

Make your services, your events, your store design, your displays, and even the simple little interactions you have with your customers so over-the-top and unexpected that they can’t wait to tell their friends and are already planning their next visit to see you.

There are four words that pretty much define most peoples’ choices for where to shop—Price, Convenience, Trust, and Experience.

All the big chains have been fighting over those first three (well, really, the first one or two) to the detriment of the Experience, not realizing that Experience is the one thing that brick & mortar can always win over the Internet. Plus, Experience is a short path that leads to Trust.

Want to win the Internet customer back to your store? Give her an Experience worth sharing. She’ll be back and will be bringing her friends with her.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You and I both know Amazon isn’t always the best price. You and I both know the hassles and inconvenience of shipping (lost or stolen packages, missed deadlines, etc.). You and I both know no one cares as much about their customers as you do. No other retailer frets over a mistake or bad experience like an indie retailer. Yet your customers don’t judge you solely on you. You are judged three ways—as yourself, as part of a collective known as “indie retailers”, and as a collective of “brick & mortar stores.” One bad experience in those latter two groups hurts you. Your best defense is to play the Experience card. Play it hard and play it often until you become the unicorn in those other two groups.

PPS Indie Retailers used to own both Trust and Experience. Go read that third paragraph again. I shuddered when I said it last week in the presentation. I shuddered when I wrote it today. If we lose that word to the Internet, it will be a game changer.

Different Eyes See Products Differently (And That’s Okay)

I got a new laptop. While I was preparing to transfer files from the old laptop, I figured now was a good time to purge. I went through all the document files one by one, deleted all the duplicates, consolidated all the pictures, and opened up files I haven’t seen in over 10 years.

One of them was a staff meeting idea. The concept was to flash certain words on a screen and have everyone write down their own definition of the word. Some of the words would be applicable to our situation like “service”. Others could be words that have dual meanings to begin with like “experience” (noun or verb?). The point of the exercise was two-fold. First, we would see how different people interpret words differently. Second, I would see how the members of my team interpret important words like service.

We all come from different backgrounds with different life experiences, so we see and interpret things in our own unique way.

Never was that more apparent than at Toy Fair last week.

My retail customers came in looking at our brand new offerings. For everything I showed I had some retailers who loved it, some who hated it, and some who just said, “Meh.” Not everyone who loved it, loved it for the same reasons. Nor did those who hated it, hate it for the same reasons. In fact, I had one retailer give me a reason for loving an item and another gave me the exact same reason for hating an item.

Just because the first customer who sees your new offerings hates them doesn’t mean they are bad.

Just because the first customer who sees your new offerings loves them doesn’t mean they will do well.

I missed one of the biggest fads of the last two decades in the toy industry. It was Webkins. I loved the toy. Loved it so much that when it was first introduced, I bought the display and the TV monitor to show the video of how it worked. Got it in August. By December 1st I had only sold 2 of 144 pieces. That night I clearanced them all at 50% off.

Do you know when the craze hit? December 2nd. The first customer of the day walked in and asked, “Do you have any Webkins?”

She bought six. By the end of day on December 4th we were sold out. I never reordered and never looked back.

Some of the negative feedback we got in the booth was really good. It was constructive criticism of things we can (and will) change. Some of the positive feedback was location-specific to the person and store giving us the feedback. Knowing the difference and knowing how to decipher the feedback you get goes a long way.

“You are not a hundred dollar bill. Not everyone is going to like you.” -Meg Cabot

We all see the world differently. When you look through the other person’s eyes, however, you see things in a whole new light.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Normally I like to give you something concrete to do in these posts—an action step or two. This post does not. But it does set up the next couple posts where I’ll try to show you what happens when you look through someone else’s eyes. It will transform your marketing & advertising, your customer service, your staff training, and even your merchandising. Stay tuned.