Sloppy service is a costly mistake - Brief Article

Shopping the big boxes in and around New York City--or any big city for that matter--can be a trying experience. It's not that the selection isn't good, or that the pricing isn't competitive. It's simply the fact that so few chains put adequate resources behind the service component of their operations--an irony for a market like New York City, where consumers can be a demanding bunch.

So it came as somewhat of a shock last month when my wife and I--being the new homeowners that we are--were shopping for home goods in one of the nearby big-box retailers and in the course of an hour's worth of browsing not a single associate could be found on the sales floor to answer some of our questions. You'd think we were running around looking for the sales per square foot of each department, or the price/earnings ratio of the company stock. But our questions really couldn't have been simpler--my wife wanted to know if the curtains we had chosen needed special rods, or whether the lamp she had selected could accommodate a shade from a separate rack.

Examples of a shortfall in customer service like this are not uncommon in any channel, and they're certainly not unique to this particular market. In fact, these are the types of questions any associate should be able to answer--regardless of their chain or channel. The fact of the matter is, most customers-- my wife being no exception--have grown to expect a certain level of customer service, without which they'll simply shop elsewhere.

To avoid losing that repeat business--and maybe even establish a reputation as a service winner in the process--there are a number of things retailers in every channel can and should do to make the store experience more shopper-friendly:

Point people: No department should ever be left without one truly knowledgeable associate who can field any question, from any customer, at any time. Look at Home Depot. For all the criticism it gets for its megabox approach to individual customer attention, they always have at least one associate in every department who talks the talk.

Greeters: Stealing a page from the granddaddy of mass retailers, do what Wal-Mart does and put a greeter at the door. So what if the concept has come to be known as a euphemism for a security guard in plain clothes. When the average customer comes through your doors, wouldn't she prefer a smile to a glare of suspicion?

Solid management: There are some things in life you simply can't skimp on. A wedding ring is one--or at least it should be. Life insurance is up there, too. And in the realm of retail, there's no excuse for poor management. Back to our shopping adventures in the New York area: My wife encountered a situation in which a price tag had fallen off the merchandise she brought to checkout. When the cashier noticed this, she told my wife that she was sorry, but without a sku she couldn't ring up the item, and therefore couldn't sell it. And get this, the manager concurred! No sku, no sale--as if it were my wife's fault the tag fell off.

That type of demeanor isn't just a reflection on poor store management. It's a reflection on poor senior management as well. When it comes to quality store management, there's little room for error. You can get by with less-than-stellar merchandise displays; you can probably afford to have last year's signage; you can even overcome the minimum wage mindsets of minimum wage cashiers. But you will never win the battle if you're not armed with top-rate store managers.

The in-store experience is where it all happens. From the moment she walks in your doors until the moment she passes through the register, you can't afford to give the customer a bad experience--and the key to that experience is service. In fact, in today's retail market service is the ultimate differentiator.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Lebhar-Friedman, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group