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The Retail Contrarian
September 10, 2007

On August 22nd I posted about Webkinz,



the interactive, collectible plush toys, the user adopts, gives a name, gender, and enters its secret code on the web.  Commenting on the post was Doug at Retail Contrarian, who wrote “As the parent of an 10 and 8 year old I am well aware of the power of Webkinz. …and the impact on a lot of retailer's bottom lines.”

I visited Doug’s site and you should too.  Doug is Doug Fleener who with Matt Norcia, are principles of Dynamic Experiences Group, LLC, a retail and customer experience consulting firm in Lexington, MA.  They believe

► To be a successful retailer, you must be different
► Customer loyalty means long-term prosperity – and nothing builds loyalty like an exceptional customer experience
► Too-complex programs confuse staff and don't work

A good customer experience creates return customers. A consistently stellar experience creates a customer-advocate – a breed of customers so committed to your operating they recruit their friends (even strangers).

Forget about customer service, it's all about the experience.

These two write a lot on their blog about the retail experience, so there is a lot of meat here.  I liked there post entitled Five Ways to Ruin A Customer's Experience:

1.    Never give a customer an estimate of how long they'll have to wait. For this to be truly effective, avoid talking with your customer while they wait.  For fun you can look his direction but the minute he makes eye contact quickly look away and go back to what you were doing.
2.    Tell the customer everything you can about yourself even though it's clear they're not interested.  I like to ask a salesperson how their day is going, but if you want to ruin my experience, trap me into a long drawn out conversation about you.
3.    Answer the phone by speaking as fast as you can and then put the caller on hold.  That always works.  Another tactic that works real well is to prefer to talk to a customer on the phone instead of the one who took time to drive to your shop.
4.    When a customer says she's ready to buy something, ring her up quickly and get her out the door.  I couldn’t possibly need show laces or polish or a new bag with my new shoes.
5.    Continue to have personal conversations with your co-workers whenever a customer is near you.

Oh, BTW, Doug, selling Webkinz in our furniture store that caters to interior designers, their clients and the public looking for furniture and possibly designer help, doesn't fit into our marketing plan.

If you would like to help us define the "retail experience", send your comments to landfair3554@comcast.net.  And...check out our other blog, LandfairFurniture (Blog).

Posted by Mike Landfair on September 10, 2007 | Comments (0)