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Category: Customer Expectations

One Very Important Person

You have an opportunity. A true VIP is coming to your door. Someone with a lot of influence. Friends in high places. Someone who makes the who’s who list every time, everywhere.

You know you need to step up your game. You know you need to pull out all the stops for this one person. You don’t want to give away the store. No deep discounts. That won’t impress this person. Plus, you don’t want to set a precedent that all of this person’s followers will want a discount, too.

You just have to make the kind of impression that gets this person to talk about you, to sing your praises, to spread the good word.

What are you going to do differently?

Ask that question of your staff at your next staff meeting. Put out a notice 24 hours in advance that you’re going to talk about a VIP visiting your store soon and what you need to do. Then lay out the scenario above.

What are you going to do differently?

Then ask this question… How could we practice this so that when the VIP arrives, we get it right?

You know the answers they are going to give. We could role play with each other. We could rehearse. We could try it out on some of the other customers already coming in the store. Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Practice it on every single customer that comes in today. Then evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Practice it again with the upgrades on everyone tomorrow. Evaluate and repeat.

Then ask this final question… How will you know the VIP when he or she arrives?

You know the answer to that one.

You’ll never really know how many followers on Pinterest will see the picture she just took of a product in your store. You’ll never really know how many readers of her blog will share the article she wrote about the way you greeted her and followed her around the store. You’ll never really know how many friends the woman who just walked quickly through without saying a word is meeting for lunch to talk about the group gift they are planning to buy. You’ll never really know how many people that gal who said she’s “just looking” is going to invite to the shower.

But if you get the staff to start practicing their VIP treatment on everyone, they’re going to nail it when that VIP truly arrives.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you ask the staff, “What are you going to do differently?” and they say, “Not a damn thing!” either you have an extremely well-trained staff who is already kicking butt or one that doesn’t have a clue. Either way, you have to fire the whole team and start over (the first group doesn’t want to do anything differently, the second doesn’t know how to do anything differently). For your sake, I hope they have some suggestions.

PPS For those who like me to spell out the obvious… Treat the very next customer like a VIP. Make her feel special. Then the next, then the next, then the next. Do it one customer at a time. Do it until you cannot treat the customer any other way. Every single customer is a VIP in her own way. Treat her like that and she will bring her network to you.

Can You Really Buy Loyalty?

How many of those loyalty scan cards do you have on your keychain? Your grocery store? Your pharmacy? Your office supply store?

Are you going in regularly with those coupons they mail you? Does it make a difference where you shop and how much you buy? For some customers, yes it does. The Transactional Customer loves those cards and takes full advantage of them. But not everyone does.

According to one survey, only about 65% of Americans actually use those loyalty program cards and coupons.

I question how many of those people would still be “loyal” to that store without the program. I know that the two cards I use are at places where I would shop anyway, whether I had the card or not. One of them, I actually hate shopping there. I only go because they have a product I can’t get anywhere else, not because of any loyalty card.

More importantly, the top reasons people say they would switch their “loyalty” to another store is because of indifferent sales help and the other store being perceived as more fun. Price and loyalty programs are far down the list.

So how much “loyalty” are you really buying? First consider that 35% of the population doesn’t care about loyalty programs. Then consider what percentage of those people using your program are actually spending more at your store than they might otherwise just because of the program. Is it more than what the program costs? I saw one program that promised if I gave away 10% discounts in my loyalty program I would see a 5% increase in sales. Not my kind of math. Then consider how quickly customers might leave your store, loyalty program and all, because of perceived indifference by your staff.

Would you really like to buy some loyalty? Spend your money on training a kick-ass staff. Spend your money making your store a more fun place to shop. Spend your money on delighting the 35% (or more) who could care less about discount cards and coupons.

That’s a loyalty program worth having.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS And it won’t be a burden on anyone’s keychain.

Broken Communication, Broken Trust

One of my employees bought a new house. She got bombarded with the typical mail a new home owner gets. Tons of offers for phone and Internet and cable services. She received close to a dozen offers from one particular company for her cable and Internet.

She finally decided to talk to an agent. You all know how that worked out.

The great offers in the mailings were nowhere to be found in the offers made by the agent. In fact, he seemed to have no clue about them and wasn’t about to go find out.

Words like slimy, snake oil, scam artist, and bait-and-switch come to mind. Definitely a huge lack of trust.

But what if he just didn’t know? What if no one in marketing had told him about the great deals they were mailing out to potential customers? What if no one had trained him well enough to know where and when to check for special deals? What if no one had followed up to make sure he was aware of the current programs?

What if you told your customers about a great deal or announced a fun event on Facebook and forgot to tell your part-time high school kid who only works nine hours a week? Forgot to inform the weekend manager who had been on vacation?  Forgot to train your seasonal staff to read the promotions book at the beginning of each shift?

Can you see how trust can be so easily broken?

My general optimism would like to believe that what my employee experienced with the cable company was nothing more than a communication problem between marketing and sales. Whether that is true or not, at least it is a lesson we all can learn.

If you’re planning an event or a promotion. Make sure everyone is in on it and knows ALL the details. The trust you’ve already worked so hard to earn depends on it.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Your entire reputation can hinge on the actions of one employee to one customer. Bad will spreads much more easily than good will. That’s a lot of pressure to make the right decisions in the hiring and training process. If you haven’t yet read Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff into a Work of Art, now might be a good time before you start hiring for the holidays.

More Than a Fair Exchange of Value

You all know I follow a bunch of blogs. You’ve probably read a blog or two on my blog roll. I read them because they challenge me. They challenge my thoughts on retail. They challenge what I think I know. A few minutes ago, I read this on a blog about Customer Loyalty.

5) Deliver a “fair exchange of value”. Too often retailers want to create “delighted” customers. Many retailers spend far too large a percentage of their revenue trying to create “delighted” customers. The reality is that customers want a fair exchange of value and rarely expect a retailer to delight them. Give them a good value, provide a comfortable and efficient shopping experience, work with them through any issues, solve their problems, and they’ll become not just loyal, but committed.

Can I agree to disagree?

Yes, customers expect a fair exchange of value. I grant that. But a fair exchange of value is the minimum. It is the bar. You have to do that just to keep them from flaming you on Facebook or Yelp. Do anything less than a fair exchange of value and you’re screwed. It is the lowest level of entry into the game.

Customers expect a fair exchange of value from frickin’ Wal-Mart!

If all you give them is a fair exchange of value, then you’re no better than Wal-Mart. And in today’s retail environment, that is not good enough. It might get you a thanks, but it won’t win you loyalty.

After you give them a fair exchange of value, you have to delight them. You have to make them say WOW! You have to make them think of you not as a store, but as their new bestie. You have to delight them to the point they cannot wait to tell their friends, tell their co-workers, tell their family.

Loyalty doesn’t come from a discount or cash back. You aren’t loyal to your friends or family because of the financial kickbacks. You’re loyal because of your shared values. You’re loyal because your friends and family have your back. You’re loyal because at the end of the day, you know those people care.

If you want loyalty from your customers, you better first give them a fair exchange of value. Then you better have their backs, you better share their values, and you better care.

My own personal belief is that too often retailers don’t do anywhere near enough to delight their customers. Yet that is where the loyalty is hiding.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS This doesn’t mean I’ll stop reading that blog. There is always something to learn. The true key phrase in that passage above is, “Customers… rarely expect a retailer to delight them.” Just think how much you will stand out in the crowd when you’re the exception to that rule.

Three More Ways to Freshen Up Your Store

I gave you four inexpensive ways to make your store look fresh.

Here are three more things you can do that might cost a little more, but will definitely freshen up the place.

  • Do a Wholesale Change of Fixtures. Move them around. Change the directions. Change the locations. Keep in mind things like sight lines, traffic patterns, and where you want to lead your customers, but nothing does more to freshen up the joint than to do a wholesale change of the merchandise.
  • Put Posters on the wall. Hang them from the ceiling, too. Put up fun posters with cute pictures of your products in use. Put up adorable pictures with interesting quotes. Put up informational posters that talk about your philosophies, how to shop your products, or how to make smarter choices. Guys like to read posters (better than having to talk to an actual person). Introverts like to read posters, too. New signage always brightens up the place.
  • Add a new Design Element that gets people talking. Add in something fun and unexpected. Put in a stage for performers. Build a tree right in the middle of your store – complete with bark and branches (and decorate it for Christmas when the time comes). Build a mountain out of plaster and paper mache and use it as the focal point of a display. Put in a fountain. Add a disco ball to the bathroom. Put a picnic area, table and all, right outside the front door. Put up a directional mileposts pole (North Pole 3,303 miles). Not only will your store be fresh and hip and cool. People will be talking about you.

Later this week we will have these Before I Die… chalkboards up on the side of our building.

Yeah, people will be talking about us. That’s the first half of the battle. You know what the second half is.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Along with the Before I Die project, we’re doing three of those other things listed above. My resident artist is working on our directional milepost pole with 46 real and fictional locales (“Where the Wild Things Are” is my favorite!). More posters are going up on the wall soon. And I am heading to the lumber yard tomorrow to buy the wood for our stage. What are you doing to make your store fresh and exciting?

When to Speed Up, When to Slow Down

One speed does not fit all in the retail world. Some shopping trips are quick hitters, kinda like guerrilla warfare – get in, get out, move on. Some are slow, easy strolls. A time for browsing, a time for gabbing, a time for pondering (a time for grabbing?).

And even within a single shopping trip there are multiple speeds. Getting to know your customer and build rapport takes time and shouldn’t ever be rushed. Getting the customer checked out and back in her car, however, requires a sense of purpose if not urgency.

Here are some reminders…

SLOW DOWN
The getting-to-know-you phase. Don’t pepper them with so many questions that they feel under attack. Let the relationship grow as naturally as possible so that they’ll feel more comfortable with you.

The product selection phase. Give them time to study during the decision-making process. Some people can make quick decisions, but many others need that extra moment to filter all the information. Go too fast here and you’ll seem pushy.

The close. This seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that there is so much training on closing the sale that most sales people are in a hurry to get that sale closed. In the process, however, you miss ample opportunities to continue serving the customer and growing the sale. Use the phrase Is there anything else I can do for you? liberally. Make sure the customer has everything she needs before you close the sale.

SPEED UP
The checkout. Once the customer is here, her only thought is to get out the door and on to the next event. Accuracy trumps speed at the checkout. But speed shows competency. To truly build trust, you need to be both accurate and efficient. Look at your procedures and see what you can do to quicken the process without hurting the accuracy.

The follow-up. If you do follow-up calls on purchases, call sooner, not later. If they have a problem, they will usually know right away and your promptness makes you look eager to solve the problem. If the customer asks a question or has a problem that requires follow-up, respond quickly – even if the response is “We’ve contacted so-and-so and are waiting for a response.”

Ask your frontline staff about the speed of the customer. Where is browsing and strolling encouraged? Where is it limited? What part of the checkout makes customers seem impatient? Where are we too fast? Where are we too slow? You’ll get valuable feedback and you’ll get your staff to become more aware of their own speeds in the process.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS When you meet with the staff, share the idea of the different speeds of the customer with them, but really listen when they start giving you feedback on what is too fast or too slow. Let them help devise the plan to slow down and speed up as necessary. If they create the plan, you’ll have their instant buy-in.

What Do You Sell?

I don’t sell toys. I sell Play Value.

I don’t sell baby products. I sell Peace of Mind, Safety, and Love.

I don’t sell books. I sell Imagination, Travel, and Dreams.

I don’t sell hobby products. I sell Creation.

So why would I be advertising toys, baby products, books and hobbies when I should be selling Play Value, Peace of Mind, Imagination, Creation and Dreams?

Not everyone who sells toys sells Play Value. Not everyone who sells baby products sells Peace of Mind, Safety, and Love. Not everyone who sells books sells Imagination and Dreams. Not everyone who sells hobby products sells Creation.

But almost everyone who buys toys, baby products, books or hobby products wants Play Value, Peace of Mind, Imagination, Creation or Dreams.

It isn’t products that they want. It is feelings. Sell the feelings. Sell your customers what they truly want.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS This is called flipping the conversation. Flip the conversation you have about your store from the tools you sell to the projects those tools create. Don’t talk about the hammer, talk about their dream tree house that hammer will build. Don’t talk about the shoes, talk about how they will feel when they finally run that race. Don’t talk about gift ideas, talk about the smile on the recipient’s face and the hugs shared. That is how you speak to the heart of your customers.

PPS The smarter of you already figured this out. I’m not just talking about your marketing. I’m talking about your customer service, too. Align your services and approach to customers around their feelings and you will feel it, too. At the cash register.

Don’t Be the Little Piggy

We all know about the little piggy. He went wee, wee, wee all the way home.

As you craft your message for your potential customers this fall, don’t be the little piggy. Take all the “we” statements out of your marketing and change them to “you” statements.

We’ve been in business since 1949.
You want a company that will be there with you for the long run.

We have great customer service.
You will never wait more than 30 seconds on hold to talk to an agent.

We are licensed.
You want a provider who not only stays current with licensing, but takes extra classes to stay ahead of the changes in your system to make sure you are never down.

We offer the best products.
You will find award-winning products like the…

We have time-saving services.
You can get your products giftwrapped for free in less time than it takes to walk in from the parking lot.

We started our business because we…
You want a business that understands your needs, who thinks like you…

The most powerfully seductive word in the English language has only three letters and none of them are an x.

Y – O – U

Make your customer the star of your web copy. Make the customer the star of your print copy. Make the customer the star of your radio copy. Make the customer the the star of your social media, your email marketing, your in-store signage.

You’re already making the customer the star of your business. Now make her the star of your marketing.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS When you talk about your customers, remember to do these three things.

  1. Tell them specifics. Specifics are more believable and lend credibility.
  2. Tell them why. People like to know why you do what you do.
  3. Speak to the heart. Emotional connections are strong. The mind will use logic to justify what the heart has already decided.
Go back and read the You statements above to see what I mean.

We Need More Rock Stars

Not just any Rock Stars – we need Retail Rock Stars. You know the stores I’m talking about. The ones you would be most disappointed if they closed. The ones who always seem to have traffic and buzz and excitement. The ones you think should probably be in a book or something because of how they merchandise the store, how they treat the customer, how they participate in the community.

Retail Rock Stars change the landscape of a community. They become the focal point of the shopping center, whether downtown, in a strip or in a mall. Retail Rock Stars attract customers, but they also attract other retailers. People want to be around winners.

The best way to grow your business is to decide right now that you are going to be a Retail Rock Star in your community. You are going to be the retailer everyone wants to be like, to locate next to, to build a community around.

How? Decide what a Retail Rock Star store looks like and do it.

Merchandising? Yes! Displays that are fresh and ever changing and new and eye-catching.
Staffing? Yes! A friendly, helpful staff that will bend over backwards to delight your customers. And I mean BEND OVER BACKWARDS.
Products? Yes! The latest products, the newest innovations, the fresh-hot-off-the-presses stuff.

The Retail Rock Star does not have peeling paint on the side of the building, an old sign, a tired window display. The RRS does not have old lighting, faded carpets, and a tired, boring staff. The RRS does not have merchandise older than the store’s pet dog.

The RRS is a learning store, learning new techniques for marketing and merchandising and training. The RRS is a trying store, trying new things, measuring and tweaking.

These are the kinds of retailers I want to help build. These are the kinds of retailers this economy needs to get out of the current funk. These are the kinds of retailers your community needs to grow and attract people and business. Yes, your community needs you to become an RRS!

That is the goal of the new and improved Jackson Retail Success Academy.



A HISTORY OF THE JACKSON RETAIL SUCCESS ACADEMY

Six years ago Scott Fleming, then director of The Enterprise Group in Jackson County challenged a full alphabet of organizations with the task of supporting and keeping indie retailers in town. From that meeting the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce (GJCC), South Central Michigan Works (SCMW), Jackson DDA, Jackson Local First (JLF), Midtown Association of Jackson, Small Business Technology & Development Center (SBTDC), City of Jackson Economic Development, and The Enterprise Group developed the Jackson Retail Success Academy (JRSA).

JRSA was designed to help start-ups and new retailers with less than five years under their belt get the tools they needed for retail success. For the last five years we have been doing exactly that. Well, kinda…
A number of retailers that took the class closed. They found out while doing the math that their business model was flawed from the get-go and there wasn’t enough market in Jackson to make it. Others were just too deep in trouble to dig out of it. A handful of class members took it to the next level, but for some, the next level was to merely go from struggling to surviving.

Most importantly, we weren’t accomplishing the real goal – to turn Jackson into an indie retail haven, a place where indie retailers would not just survive but thrive. We kept looking for struggling retailers to take the class, super small retailers, the minnows in our pond. We were hoping to grow them into fish.

We were focused on the wrong crowd. Winners attract winners. We needed to spend more time trying to grow whales, not fish. We needed to create more Rock Stars.

Time to refocus.

The new and improved JRSA is starting over with a new focus. We are looking for the whales, the established indie retailers who want to go from surviving to thriving. The curriculum is pared down to the essentials of Rock Stardom. The instruction is updated to include thriving in this most challenging new era of retail where all the rules you knew before have changed.

This is not to say that start-ups and newbies are not welcome. They are. Gladly. The information is only as good as the effort you put toward using it.Anyone willing to put forth the effort will get the results they want. But my focus for JRSA will be to go whale-hunting.

The bait is pretty good.

-Phil Wrzesinskiwww.PhilsForum.com

PS The beauty of the new and improved JRSA is that it is easier to take on the road.  If you have a handful of retailers in your town that are on the verge of Rock Staardom, but just need that push to get over the edge, get in touch. I can cram all 20 hours of instruction into two days that, if your head doesn’t explode, will rock your world.

Two More Freebies For You

Why do I give it away for free? It is part of my Core Values to be helpful.

Don’t get me wrong. I love getting paid to sell toys and baby products. I love getting paid to travel across the country and impart some of the lessons I’ve learned to a room full of peers.

I also love helping and sharing. I want my ideas and thoughts to spread farther and wider to help my friends and peers in the independent retail industry. Plus. more often than not, I’ve already been paid.

All of my Freebies are the notes written from presentations I have done. That is why they are short and sweet – so you can print them easily. I could make eBooks more like power points with full-page graphics, tight bullet points and simple messages spread out over 72 pages. But I would rather keep them down to seven pages or less so that I can use them as handouts. Short and sweet so you can print them at home and read later. Short and to the point for you to email and share with your friends.

Since I got paid to do the presentation, I have already been paid to write the eBook, too. Now we just need to spread the word.

Here are two new Freebies worth sharing.

Generating Word-of-Mouth – You know Word of Mouth is the best form of advertising. But do you know the five ways to generate it? Do you know how to get people to talk positively about your business? This Freebie shares all the secrets behind getting people to talk about you.

(Yes, I decided to put it under Great Marketing. Put your best stuff where the customers are most likely to see it.)

Making Your Ads Memorable – Most ads are ignored, because most ads are lousy. The truly remarkable ads are the ads most remembered. This Freebie will show you three things you can do to make your print and broadcast advertisements cut through the clutter and be seen, heard and remembered by your potential customers.

Enjoy!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Some have argued that by giving it all away, no one will ever hire me to speak. Fair enough. Of course, the live explanations are always more fun and interesting and worth every penny. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t offer to do them.