Southern Jewelry News

Marketing Concepts

17:02

April

2008

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Article Autor: David Rodgers

Walking in your customer’s shoes

Back in my college years, I made extra money as a waiter at the local family restaurant. I didn’t have any business experience at the time, but even so, I knew that there were some things that the owners could do that would bring customers back more often.

The restaurant was a small chain, but the owners were rarely there, relying on managers to oversee daily operations. First mistake. Not a mistake to have managers, but a mistake to rarely be there. The reason is that in order to be successful, business owners and managers must see the establishment as a customer would.

Here are a few steps that will allow you to walk a few miles (or yards) in your customer’s shoes.

1) Keep things overly neat and friendly-looking
Whether it is conscious or not, customers will make decisions on whether they like your store based on it’s appearance. Back at the family restaurant I worked at, I remember a few of the tables in the prime location were permanently sticky, no matter how much you scrubbed them. No one ever complained about the sticky tables, but I’d be willing to bet that several customers came back less often, or not at all, because the sticky tables made them feel the place was dirty.

What the managers saw was a minor annoyance and what the customers likely saw was a parallel to how clean things must be in the kitchen. Therefore, make sure your display cases are free of smudges, and that your showroom is clutter and dirt-free, and that your bathrooms are equally presentable. No one will come out and thank you, but the impression and image of your store will be enhanced.

2) Train your employees to be customer-oriented and friendly
As a musician and jingle writer I frequent many music stores. There is one that I am forced to go to because they are the only seller of a particular type of sheet music that I often need. However for whatever reason, most of their cashiers are quite unfriendly to the point where I might call it rude.

Notice before I said, “forced to go to,” and that is because if there were any other store that sold this sheet music - with friendly employees - I would shop there, even at a higher price. This should come as a lesson that having kind employees is worth money, and will also improve gross sales.

Employees should follow the rule that the customer is always right (which is true over 98% of the time, and disputes should be directed to you the other 2% of the time). Also make it a practice, every so often, to watch employee-customer interactions from afar, and point out methods of improving, when necessary.

3) Train your employees to be helpful and not high pressure
Employees should know that they are expected to sincerely smile at every customer that they see and welcome them. Instead of asking, “how can I help you?” right away, have employees say, “how are you today?” first, and then wait to see if it looks like help is needed.

If it looks as though this is the case, instead of asking, “how can I help you?” (which assumes help is needed), have them ask, “did you need help with anything?” Changing the questions to the above reduces pressure and makes customers feel more welcome.

In my area, two local electronic chain stores with high-pressure sales people went out of business, and about the same time, two low-pressure national electronic chain stores moved in. These stores are doing better because the customer never wants to feel pressure to spend money. They only want to hear the benefits of a particular product – and only if they’ve specifically asked for this information.

It might be a good idea to ask a friend whom your employees are unfamiliar with to “mock-shop” at your store and ask what they think would make them more likely to buy. While you’re at it, enter your store from the front and imagine yourself as a customer. What do you see that needs change? Simply change whatever that is for the better, and in the long run you’ll be seeing happier customers, ready to buy.

David Rodgers is Business Director for the JewelryTalk service, which provides informative, fun-to-read weekly columns for jewelry stores to use in their newspaper advertising. He also owns DR Jingles, a radio-advertising firm. Contact him at jewelrytalk@yahoo.com or 248-514-9376.