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Blog posts tagged customer experience
Dear shopping fairy...
April 15, 2011
If there is a fairy godmother in charge of shopping I hope she is listening.
I hope she takes online and high street retailers to one side and says, “Look, your brain does something funny when you go to work, don't you realise what the world is like for customers?”.
I hope she sprinkles them with her fairy dust so they listen when we tell them about the hundreds of little opportunities to sell that they miss every single trading day.
I need to understand what you’re telling me
Show people where to go as soon as they start to shop. When they get to your products make the descriptions, sizes and prices easy to read. Remember that customers have criteria — if you understand how customers are deciding what to buy, then you have more chance of selling to them.
I need to find a product I want
Test out a customer's “journey” around your store — or ecommerce website — and look at how their needs and criteria change. Clearly signpost changing rooms and cash registers from different directions so that the customer knows where to go. If you use mannequins to highlight outfits, put the products right by them, clearly marked. Make sure packaging clearly and easily communicates what’s inside.
I need to buy at a time that suits me
If customers have a need now, why not satisfy it? If your processes are fixed to a strict schedule of seasonal buying, you’re at the mercy of the weather making your customers want to buy something that you don’t have. Don’t apply fashion season rules to non-fashion basics; if this happens in your store, ask your customers if it suits them — if it doesn’t, change it.
I need to avoid stuff I cannot buy
Don’t spend any time or money offering things to customers who cannot buy them. Don’t put any barriers in front of customers with money. Arrange sale clothing by size, not price — during a sale we always need to know what size a garment is and never how much it costs (it’s already in the sale).
I don’t want to repeat myself
If customers have given their contact details to you once, it should be possible to buy from you without having to give them again. When customers do make an enquiry, make it easy for them to progress this to a purchase. Follow up enquiries that haven’t led to a sale and find out why. Knowing why someone hasn’t bought from you is just as important as knowing why they have.
Don’t confuse information with knowledge — having broad market research to hand isn’t the same as understanding the people who buy from you. Think like a customer not a manager, you can't afford to ignore any incremental benefits to your bottom line.
Lynn Allison FCIM, Chartered Marketer is the author of Catching the Chameleon, published by Ecademy Press.
Competition winners
Thank you for all your great retail tips and comments on Lynn's blog. And congratulations to Craig Dearden, Tim Shapcott and Bronwyn Durand who all win a copy of Lynn's book, Catching the Chameleon.
Some only need it. Others really want it.
February 08, 2011
Losing weight, giving up smoking, getting a better education, getting a better job. Some people only need it. Others really want it.
And so it is with customer service. Some organisations really need to give better service. Their customers are telling them so, their employees are telling them so and their profits are probably telling them so. But for whatever reason, they don’t want to give better service.
And then there are those who really want it. Those organisations that recognise the importance of listening to their customers, creating a culture with high levels of employee engagement and building their bottom line and their goodwill.
If you want to experience great service, go to an organisation that wants to serve you, where the people are empowered and encouraged to delight you. Very often these organisations don’t need big budgets for advertising or recruitment or training. I’ve never seen a single advertisement for Pret A Manger yet their service is outstanding and their business has grown rapidly from humble beginnings in 1986.
It starts with leadership, with a vision, the ability to communicate that vision and the strength to look for long term growth rather than short term profits. You can feel the leadership running through the organisation like the word Blackpool in a stick of rock. I feel Julian Richer’s influence at Richer Sounds, John and James Timpson at Timpson shoe bars, Richard Branson at Virgin Atlantic and Charles Dunstone at Carphone Warehouse.
You don’t have to be big. You don’t have to be small. But remember that a big business is just a small business that did the right things.
Think lifetime value. When a customer comes in for a USB stick, for instance, think what their lifetime value might be — a computer every two years, plus printers, and cables and inks and paper and servicing and broadband, for them, for their family, for their business. Cock up on the £10 sale and you lose that lifetime value for your lifetime.
Derek Williams is an expert contributor to Marketing Donut and the founder and chief executive of The WOW! Awards.
A Truly Remarkable Business - One Worth Talking About
September 10, 2010
Where there’s a great experience then there’s probably great care.
Just been to Dans le Noir - a truly remarkable restaurant in London (and Paris).
What makes it so special and worthy of mention?
- You eat and drink in the pitch darkness. And it really is dark.
- Serving people are blind or partially blind
- After the meal they tell you what you actually ate!
Just think about it.
The whole concept challenges how you ‘see’ flavours and textures and how you relate to your food. It is mind-blowing. You have to go. It is like no other restaurant. And the “blinded guides” have to care for you while you are totally outside your comfort zone.
The experience is wild and challenging. Spending a couple of hours without any sight makes you re-evaluate your fortune at being sighted, think about what it must be like to be blind, and messes with your palate. You have little idea what you are eating. Crazy. The experience lingers for days.
My point. Dans le Noir is a true experience. You don’t forget it. You tell everyone about it. Remarkable. A business. And it increases public awareness about blindness.
If only more businesses could offer a true experience.
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