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Category: Word of Mouth

Twenty Five Cents is Golden

What if I told you that for only 25 cents per customer who walks through your door tomorrow you can generate a thousand dollars worth of advertising?

What if I told you that a small gesture on your part will make a huge difference that sets you far apart from your competition?

What if I told you that a simple little thing will send one of the most powerful messages ever that will create loyal fans and evangelists?

What if I told you that if you give your customer something she can already get for free she will love you for it?

Would you think I am crazy?

What if I told you to go buy a couple cases of water, some ice and a cooler?

On these hot summer days you can stand out from the crowd by giving away bottles of ice cold water.  At a small cost to you it will have a huge effect on your customers in a number of ways…

Lagniappe

There is a French Cajun word that means “a little extra”.  Just giving away something for free creates a bond with your customer. It makes her smile, makes her feel special, makes her feel like an insider.  There are many ways to offer lagniappe in your store.  On a hot summer day this is an easy no-brainer way to do it.

You Don’t Have to Advertise It

Don’t go out on your Facebook page and advertise it.  Let your customers do it for you.  Put out the cooler and I bet by the end of the day at least one of your customers has taken a photo with her phone and posted it on her own site.  Plus, she will be telling her friends about it.  These are the kinds of moments your customers love to share.

They’ll Stay Longer

With a water in hand, she’ll feel more refreshed and more comfortable, which means she’ll shop longer (as long as you have a bathroom nearby:-).  Is it worth 25 cents to you to keep your customers in the store longer?

You Care

A simple little gesture like this also shows how much you care.  You recognize that it is hot.  You recognize the customer had to leave her air-conditioned house to visit you.  You recognize that she went out of her way, so you go out of your way to make her as comfortable as possible.  Believe me, she will know what you did.

Time for a grocery store run.

Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  It probably won’t even cost you that much.  Only about a third of our customers took a water.  But all of them saw it, all of them felt the caring, the generosity, and the comfort. And many of them talked about it.

PPS  Last night at the local grocery store I bought 72 waters (half-liter size) and a bag of ice for $12.73.  That comes down to just under 18 cents per bottle.  Figuring only one-third of the customers take one, we’re talking 6 cents per customer to reap those benefits.  Tell me where else you can get that kind of ROI.

Schedule to the Peak

I just received my Profit Survey back from the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA).  Every other year they have toy stores submit their financials to help us see what the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss might be for a typical indie toy store.  It is a fascinating document full of amazing facts and percentages and one of my favorite benefits of belonging to ASTRA.

Going through all the numbers, it is fun to see how a store my size (the largest family-owned indie toy store in America) compares to other stores.  For instance, we buy from more than twice as many vendors as the typical toy store (540 versus 230).

The number that is always fun for me is the breakdown of payroll.  My payroll is much higher as a percentage of sales than my fellow toy stores.  It isn’t because I give myself a big bonus.  Owner payroll is significantly lower than other stores.  It is because I have a big staff.

Maybe too many people if you look at what other stores do.

But there is a purpose for that.  I like to schedule my staff to the peak.  In other words, when the peak moment of the day happens, I want enough staff here to handle it easily and smoothly without a single drop in levels of service.  The hard part is trying to guess when that peak will happen.  As you know in retail, there are no certainties on when the customers will show up.

So I schedule more than enough staff to handle the average moments, knowing that I will be able to give customers a great experience even when we’re “crazy busy”.  Sure, it drives up payroll costs.  But it helps me save it in other areas.  WOW Customer Service brings Word of Mouth, which saves on advertising.

Still not sure it is worth scheduling that way?

Think about it from a customer’s perspective.  If you don’t schedule to the peak, here is what your customer sees.  She doesn’t know what your peak looks like.  All she knows is that you don’t have enough staff to help her right now.  Your staff might tell her, “Sorry, we got really swamped.  We’ll be with you in a moment,” but what does that tell her?  Some of those customers will think, Wow, that is great that they are so busy.  Others will think, Wow, they didn’t expect to do much business. I wonder how things are going.

Schedule to the peak and when that busy moment happens, she might think, Wow, they expected to be busy.  This store is the happening place.

Just make sure when it isn’t the peak that you have plenty of projects to keep the staff occupied so that they always look like they are working.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Make a checklist of everything that needs to get done for the day and give it to each person on the staff.  Challenge them to see who can do the most on the checklist without ignoring a customer.  Reward your winners.  You’ll get more people trying to accomplish more on those checklists every single day.

Don’t Make Them Guess

Have a different way of doing things?  Don’t make your customers guess.  Tell them right up front.  Here is how we do things.  Put it on a sign.  Put it in a brochure, flier, or even a simple handout.  Make sure every employee tells it to every customer.  Never assume they know.  Never assume they will figure it out on their own.

I took the family to one of our favorite restaurants this past weekend.  They have a lovely outdoor patio overlooking a beautiful lake – great way to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend.  In previous visits we learned that the wait staff will serve drinks on the patio (slowly, but eventually), but not food.  You have to go to their take-out window.  So when we walked in, knowing we wanted to sit on the patio and enjoy the sunshine, we first stopped at the take-out window.

But when we entered the patio there was a server bringing food out to all three of the occupied tables.  Okay, we thought, now they serve food.  Cool!  Drinks ought to come faster now.  Except the waitress never once stopped by our table.  Not. Even. Once.

I ended up going to the bar to get our drinks.


And guess how I felt?  Yeah, shunned, ignored, and confused.  Do they serve on the patio or do they not serve on the patio?  Do they serve only the southern end of the patio or only groups of six or more?  Do they serve if you ask but not if you don’t?

Confusion can be your enemy when you are trying to delight your customers.  For the most part, we only do the things we feel comfortable doing.  Confusion negates comfort.  And not only was I confused, I most certainly was not delighted.

Do things differently.  I strongly encourage it.  But let your customers know plainly and simply how you do things differently so there will be no confusion.  Only comfort.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Ikea is a classic example of doing things differently and letting you know up front through signage and brochures.  In fact, I think their signage is some of the best in the retail world.  Apple is another example who does it through staff training.  You have to interact with the staff to learn their ways, though, and not everyone wants to interact with the staff (men and introverts).

The Waiting Game

Speaking of what to do while waiting…

I took this picture in the stall of the men’s bathroom at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. (sorry for the poor cellphone quality of the pic)

There were animal poop and pee facts in every stall.  (Did you know a blue whale can hold over 55 gallons of urine in his bladder?)

Some of the kids in my group were going into every stall of every bathroom just to read the facts.  Now that is a WOW Factor!

Bathrooms are great opportunities to surprise and delight.  This is just one way.  How many more ways can you create?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One of the brilliant things about what the National Aquarium did is that fun facts like this are easy and desirable to share.  And we love to share!  If you’re going to steal this idea, Give your customers something share-worthy

PPS  This is a great project for the staff.  Show them this blog. Then set them free to create a bathroom that gets talked about… in a good way!  (Plus, if they create it, they will take more ownership to keep it clean.)

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

You are not in business to make pennies.  You are in business to make dollars, lots of them, over a long period of time.

So why are you getting so upset at the customer who didn’t come in right away to use to the free gift certificate you gave her?  Why are you mad at her when she shows up a year later?  She showed up, didn’t she?

So why are you arguing with the customer over the return she wants to make because it wasn’t the right item for her?  Why are you making her angry just to save yourself from pulling a few dollars out of the drawer today?

So why are you fretting over the one customer who showed a few days after the coupon you sent her expired? Does the fact that 500 other customers showed up on time with their coupons give you a reason to make this one customer angry enough to post on Facebook about you?

Bob Negen of Whizbang Training came to Jackson to speak to our downtown businesses.  He told us a story that has stuck with me a long time.  He was buying an Apple Computer.  He had heard about how great they were.  Unfortunately, his wasn’t so great.  After three repairs, it still wasn’t working.  Never had worked.  They wanted to repair it one more time.  He wanted to start with a new one.  They said no.  And for the cost of one computer they lost his business forever.

Did I mention that his business had 5 computers at that time?
And he had 2 at home?
And he plans to be in business another 20 or so years?
And he needs printers, cables, mouses, too?
And he likes to upgrade to new stuff every three years?

Seven computers times seven upgrades equals 49 computers.  The Apple guy lost 49 sales because of that one sale.  Oh, but he saved the price of one computer (sarcasm intended).

Look at your horizon.  How long do you want to be in business?  When you take a long view of your business you see that every transaction is simply a means by which you get to earn another transaction.  Sometimes you will make money on this transaction.  Sometimes you won’t.  The goal of each transaction, however, is to delight the customer enough so that she will come back and bring her friends with her.  Nothing more, nothing less.

When you begin to look at it that way, you’ll be dollars (and sense) ahead of your competition.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS For more ways to delight customers and earn more transactions, check out my free eBook Customer Service: From Weak to WOW!.  

PPS  Thanks, Mary, for inspiring this blog.  Sorry that other toy store didn’t get it.

Tell Me a Story

Quick, tell me a story about a recent transaction in your business that made you laugh…

Didn’t take long to think of something, did it?  The hardest part was probably deciding which story to tell.

We all have a backlog of stories we can share; some touching, some hilarious, some that get your blood pressure up.

Do you have a place to share them?

Stories are powerful because stories evoke emotions.  Emotions move the needle far better than facts and data.  Stories are more memorable, too.

Quick, tell me the phone number from your dorm room your freshman year in college.  Don’t remember?  How about three stories from your freshman year about dating?  Much easier.

If you want your customers to relate to you, tell them stories that evoke the emotions you want them to feel.  Tell them stories that will stick in their minds long after the data is gone.  Tell them stories that they will share with others.

You have plenty of stories to tell.  Start telling them.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  You can tell stories on your blog, on FB, in your advertising, on signs in your store.  For as many stories as you have, you can find a new way to share.

Plan for the Crowd

We went out to eat last Friday at one of our regular eateries while on vacation.  Things had changed.  The spot where we usually sat was now occupied by two empty pool tables.  Other seating areas had been replaced with over-stuffed chairs. The capacity sign from the county said 139 people but we only counted chairs for 65 and not very many tables. Even though the place was only half full, they barely had enough tables of the right height and shape to put two together for the six of us.  They almost sent us away at 5:45pm. The pre-wedding party that arrived moments later had no choice but to sit out on the patio with the bugs.

We went out to eat on a Monday night at a small, off-the-beaten-path dive known for oysters and fried seafood.  We were a group of eight. Figured we would be largest group in the restaurant.  We tied for third largest (fourth if you count the baby in the car seat).  The waitress was running ragged.  Two of our party did not get served until well after the rest of us had decided to eat before our food went cold.  The food was great but the poor servers and cooks were struggling to keep up with the crowds, even though the two larger groups were from reservations.

Both of these restaurants left me wondering what might have been.  Although I have frequented these places multiple times in my years visiting this area, I am sure many of the patrons were there for the first, and possibly last, time.  Those same people are telling their friends,
“Don’t go there, they don’t have any dinner seating.  I think it is more of a bar place.”
“Don’t go there. The food is okay, but the service sucks.”

Yet the solutions are simple.  The first place needed more tables that could handle groups of six (not an uncommon number at a beach resort).  There was plenty of room for more tables and chairs.  The second place just needed to call in another server.  The two large groups were reservations.  They knew they had a crowd coming.

Sure, both of those things might cost some money up front.  But remember, your business tomorrow is directly related to how well you serve customers today.  Plan for success by making sure you are ready for the crowds and you will never send customers away unsatisfied.  Think of the message you send your customers when you can handle the really busy moments.  They will walk away thinking, “Gee, they handled the crowd well.  The store must have expected to be that busy.”  

That is a pretty good message to send out into the world.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Crowds are your moments to shine.  You have the most potential people available to give you word of mouth advertising.  What would you like them to say?

We’re Here to Make You Smile

Every month at our staff meetings we have time carved out for “Smile Stories” – moments when you made the customer smile in a memorable way.  The staff keep notes throughout the month of their favorite stories just so they have something to share.  Some even take notes of the smile stories someone else on the staff created to make sure those do not get missed.

Most say it is one of their favorite parts of working here.

Can you guess how often Creating a Smile is on the top of my staff’s mind?

Always.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Want some tips for how you can get your customers to smile more?  Download the free eBook Customer Service: From Weak to Wow.

Two Things You Can Correct Right Now

Did 2011 go the way you wanted?

Do you want 2012 to be better?

Here are two things you can work on right now that won’t cost you an arm and a leg, but will make a difference.

BEAT YOUR CUSTOMER’S EXPECTATIONS

Your customer has a set of expectations of how she will be treated when she comes through that door. Either she knows what to expect because she has been there before, or she thinks what to expect based on your reputation or advertising.

And when you meet her expectation, she may smile, she may even say, “Thanks!” But that is as far as it goes.

When you exceed her expectation, however, magical things begin to happen. By the power of reciprocity she feels like she now owes you one.

She may repay that by feeling more loyal to your store and making a return visit.
She may repay that by gushing about you to her friends.
She may repay that by spending more the next time she is in.

One way you can exceed her expectations is Generosity. Is there something you can give away that will pleasantly surprise her? A classic example is the jeweler who changes your watch battery for free. Doesn’t advertise it, just does it. My favorite example is the expensive restaurant with the mouth-watering dessert menu. You and your friends have decided to split a dessert or two when the waiter comes to the table exclaiming how he is in a good mood and would like to buy dessert for everyone at the table. Do you think you’ll be bragging about this restaurant for a while? Of course you will. And you will be going back sooner than you think.

For more ways to exceed your customers’ expectations, download my free eBook Customer Service: From Weak to Wow.

SAY SOMETHING REMARKABLE

Your advertising is blah. How do I know? Because 99.9% of the advertising out there is blah. That is why it does not work. It has nothing to do with reaching the right people. It has nothing to do with the medium you are using. It has everything to do with you not being brave enough to make a bold statement.

Most ads are written not to offend. And they become so beige that they do not move the needle at all. Since about 90% of the population is not shopping with you right now anyway, who are you afraid of offending?

The best phone call I ever received happened last December. A gal called to tell me how much she hated my ads. At first I thought it was a prank. But when she did not break from this message, I asked her why she hated them. She said, “Because you make it sound like all the other stores sell crap.” Good! That is what my ads were supposed to say.

Spice up your advertising by saying something bold. Back it up with evidence. Make it interesting and relevant. Without spending a penny more, the money you are spending on advertising will become far more effective.

Do those two things and you will be praying the Mayans were wrong about 2012.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Not sure what to say in your ads? You should read these three eBooks. Don’t worry. They are short, sweet, and best of all, FREE. Read them in order and email me if you have any questions.
Understanding Your Brand (and the accompanying Worksheet)
How Ads Work Part 1
How Ads Work Part 2

Be the “Hot” in Your Category

Seth Godin pointed out something the toy industry has known for a few years…

There is no singular HOT toy to drive in the traffic.

Hasn’t really been one since the first Tickle Me Elmo back in 1997. Oh, sure, there have been some hard-to-find items, a few crazes here and there, but nothing like the way people went bonkers over that furry red guy that vibrated and laughed. They stood in long lines, got into fist-fights, paid hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to get one.

Those days are over. And that is good news for you.

The traffic still craves direction and guidance. The traffic still wants to know where to go and what to buy. The traffic is still looking for something Hot.

So instead of the Hot item, be the Hot store.

You do this by being innovative.

Are you in a downtown location with limited parking? Offer free valet service. Are you in a winter weather environment? Offer coat check and coffee or hot cocoa. Are you in a category that requires special knowledge? Offer classes and tutorials. Do you get a lot of out-of-town traffic? Offer local maps to interesting sites, fabulous restaurants and other great shops in your area.

Rotate your merchandise regularly. Make fun and surprising displays that get people to talk about you and want to see what you are doing.

You do this by being iconic.

You know that every woman in the room pays extra attention to the package wrapped in the turquoise blue. Tiffany owns that color. What can you own?

You do this by being fun.

Smiling and saying hello makes people happy. Genuinely having fun gets those happy people to talk about you. You could play guessing games. You could have quick polls and sign-in books. You could run contests. You could have giveaways. Just make sure you hire fun people.

Regardless of what the media tries to promote, there is no hot toy anymore. Only hot stores. Be one of them.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS It is no longer about Customer Service. It is all about Customer Experience. The better the experience, the more people will want to have that experience.