Are You Making Human Contact Count

Once upon a time, retailers stood next to their barrows arranging their merchandise while warmly greeting and humorously haggling with their customers.
Periodically they would ask a close family member to replenish what was selling while they would vocally promote the continually refreshed assortment and attempt to move the slower moving stock- always casting a wary eye on their competitors. They had an intimate relationship with their markets.

It was a place to chat, to joke, to share smiles and gossip, and the shopkeeper and the customer liked it that way.

The move towards centralized decision-making over the past 50 years has punished both retailers and customers: it traded effectiveness for efficiency. As decisions gradually migrated from stores to the head office, the number (and skills) of people in stores was reduced - and so was the amount they were paid. The result has been that store staff turnover increased, the quality and training of people diminished and service levels dropped dramatically.

Today, customer service and “clienteling” have almost vanished.

Stores are no longer customer sanctuaries but product warehouses.

Chain retailers inadvertently created a self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecy: they made themselves more vulnerable to non-store retailing. Less friendliness, less information and less service accompanied by higher prices are hardly a convincing purchase argument!

By reducing themselves to high cost service-less product “vending machines” they have made themselves vulnerable to non-store purchase alternatives where price is the only meaningful differentiator.

What is the point of having staff in stores:
• If they treat customers as if they are intruders?
• If the customer has to search the store for assistance?
• If their only purpose is to collect a payment?
• If they do not add value for a customer but add a premium to product prices?

Price differentials cannot be justified by the cost of “worthless” personnel and store overhead.

The disadvantage of the on-line retailer, which is the lack of human contact as part of the shopping experience, is no longer a disadvantage when it is duplicated at the store level through lack of service, expertise and motivation.

It is tragic that people believe it’s more pleasant and convenient to shop on-line rather than in stores. As a result, in-store retailers have lost market share and margins because they have had to launch bigger and bigger promotions to lure customers back into their shops.

Unfortunately, many consumers are so disappointed by their experience of in-store retail shopping that they prefer the lack of human contact on the internet to the in-store treatment they receive!

You can only deliver the human contact that your customers want through your staff.

So is in not time that you start making human contact count