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How To Compete Against Big-Box Retailers
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Article 6: Roll Out the Red Carpet For Your Customers
Walk into the nearest big-box store and what do you see? Rows and rows of huge shelves filled to the brim with merchandise. What you don’t see are employees talking with customers.
Lousy customer service is the Achilles’ heel of the warehouse operator. Most customers are left to wander the aisles aimlessly in the hope they will eventually discover an item that meets their needs.
Take advantage of this failing by the large retailers.
“There is a tremendous amount retailers can do to compete against the big-box stores,” says Jim Dion, president of Dionco Inc., a Chicago-based retailing consulting firm. “In many cases the small and midsized retailer has better insight into the local customer and can assort the merchandise better and provide better services and better product knowledge and better everything. But they consistently do not. So by default they hand over the business to the big chains.”
Make your store different. Here are some ideas used by successful independents just like you.
- Greet customers quickly when they enter the store. Give a cheery hello and thank them for stopping in.
- After assisting your customers, ask them what additional services they want. Continually survey your shoppers on ideas that will make their lives easier.
- Establish a mailing list to regular customers. Give them personal attention with a merge printing so their name appears on the letter. Give customers what they miss in the glossy brochures from the big box stores.
- Break down your customer list by shopping patterns, then aim your mailings accordingly. One successful independent store broke out a list of shoppers who bought over $1,000 in merchandise in the past year, but who had not been back in several months. Those shoppers received a “we miss you” letter inviting them to cash a $25 gift certificate.
- Remember the day when retailers were known for addressing the customers by their first name? Train your employees to do that.
- Shop the mass merchandiser and look for failings in service and merchandise selection. Then offer these missing items in your own store.
Can’t afford a big training program for your staff? Here’s a quick way to train people: Have them watch and emulate your own interaction with customers.
Stores that give poor service will go under. Retailers who greet their customers by name and do special mailings will thrive. Customers are precious. Treat them well, and your cash registers will ring.
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