photo credit: Zigar

When your store is out of stock on an item…what does your staff do and say?

When I was out of state not long ago, I looked around for a pair of light hikers for everyday wear. I knew exactly what I wanted right down to the model name.

I visited a locally owned store, but they didn’t have my size in stock. A few days later, I visited a box store. They had the shoe on the wall (which is never my size), but they didn’t have any others. They didn’t even have the match to the one on the wall.

As I got into the car in the box store parking lot, I called the locally owned store again just in case they had some new arrivals. Nope.

They offered to order a pair for me, but I told them I was visiting from elsewhere and wouldn’t be around when they arrived.

At this point, they had choices:  Focus on the sale, focus on the customer or try harder.

What’s your focus?

If your sales people are trained to focus on the sale, they might say “Nope, we don’t have any” and be disappointed that they didn’t get a sale. If that’s the end of the conversation, your customer might go elsewhere – losing the sale and the customer.

If your sales people are trained to focus on the customer, they might say “Nope, we don’t have any. Have you looked at (competitor number one) or (competitor number two)? They both carry that brand.”

If your sales people are trained to focus on keeping your customers happy, they might say ”Nope, we don’t have any. If you come by and let us fit you in a similar shoe in that brand, I can order that model in your size and have it shipped to you. If it doesn’t fit like you want, we’ll take care of you until you’re happy or we’ll give your money back.”

What they did was refer me to two of their competitors (one was the store whose parking lot I was in). The second one had my size in stock, so 20 minutes later, I had my shoes and was heading for the in-laws place.

The “try harder” choice might not have been what I wanted, but I wasn’t given a choice. Keep in mind that you can always fall back from the “try harder” position if the customer isn’t interested in or cannot use that kind of help.

The important thing

You might think that the locally owned retailer lost a sale, but that isn’t as important as keeping the customer over the long term.

While I wasn’t able to buy the shoes from the place I wanted, they were able to help me find them.

They could’ve run me off quickly by saying “We don’t have that size.”

They didn’t do that. I suspect their handling of the call was the result of training driven by a management decision.

I wasn’t a familiar voice calling them on the phone. While I’ve bought from their store on and off for 20 years, they don’t know that because they keep paper sales tickets. I’m not there often enough to be a familiar face / voice and had not been in their town for two years.

Yet they treated me like someone they want to come back.

Do you treat your customers that way? Do your online competitors?

Competition from tomorrow?

Sometimes business owners complain about online competition.

Yet online stores can rarely provide instant gratification. It’s difficult for them to help you buy something you need today for a meal, event, dinner, date, meeting or presentation happening later today.

They can rarely deliver the kind of service a local, customer-focused business can offer.

Online often gets a foothold when local service and/or selection are poor and focused on the wrong thing. Even with online pricing, a product isn’t delivered until tomorrow.

When you aren’t competing strongly against tomorrow, you really aren’t even competing against today.

Focus on helping them get what they want and need. Whether they are local or remote, customers just want to be well taken care of and get what they came for.

photo credit: mackarus

You may have seen those odd-looking square barcodes in newspapers and magazines, on product boxes, etc.

You might even have noticed them in the middle of the star-shaped signage in some Macy’s television commercials.

They’re called “QR codes“.

Why should business owners should care about them?

A smartphone can scan/read a QR code, which will take it to a specific web site address (URL).

Why use them at all? Who really cares about yet another barcode?

Your prospects and customers do. Some of your websites make it really hard to buy.

For prospects and customers using smartphones, it can be particularly annoying. But your customers don’t use smartphones, right?

Let’s talk about that. Currently, Nielsen (yes, those TV ratings people count other things too) says 40% of U.S. cell phone users use a smartphone.

A web search will tell you that there are 327 million active mobile subscriptions in the U.S. Yes, that’s more mobile subscriptions than there are adults, per the 2010 census. The numbers get a little whacked partly because of the number of people with a personal account/cellphone and a business one (provided to them or otherwise).

327 million is a fairly big number. Too big, maybe. To get a better handle on the numbers, a glance at a 2009 CTIA (wireless telecom industry group) survey of their members report indicated that 257 million Americans have data-capable devices and about half of those are phones. The rest are laptops and tablets. So we’ve reduced the number to roughly half the population, which is close to the Nielsen number.

Again, that’s a end-of-2009 number….BEFORE the availability of iPhone4 (and 4S), iPad and other modern-ish tablets.

Seems to me a number that’s even 10 million smartphones too big would be enough to provoke interest in the experience mobile/smartphone website users have at your site.

So now that you have big scary (or exciting) numbers to think about – particularly if your business deals in retail, tourism and other core business-to-consumer fields – get back to solving “we make it hard to buy” problem.

Important safety tip about using QR codes

Never (yes, never) use your home page URL as the destination.

Reason #1 – QR code users are, by definition, mobile users. Presumably you have a URL that is designed to be used by mobile browser users so they don’t spend all of their time squinting, pinching and spreading (or pressing zoom buttons) to read about your cool new product. If your site automatically senses mobile browsers and changes behavior or reroutes them to pages designed for mobile users, all the better.

Reason #2 – Sending them directly to your home page can make it far more difficult to measure inbound visitor numbers.

Why is that important? Because you want to know how your QR code links are performing by media/by ad/by publication etc. If you have them going to different URLs (web site addresses) such as MyReallyCoolsite.com/QR1 and MyReallycoolsite.com/QR2, then you can figure out their individual performance.

If QR code A works better than QR code B, you have information about the effectiveness of the media, placement and other characteristics of the location of that code. You can eliminate this reason by including QR code specific analytics codes (Google Analytics, et al) in your URLs, but that doesn’t eliminate the most important reason…

Reason #3 – Why did they scan (and hopefully share) that QR code/URL? Because they wanted something specific that they were looking at RIGHT THEN. If I’m looking at a Corvette ad in an in-flight magazine, do I want to go to Chevy.com or do I want to go to the page that describes the smokin’ Vette I’m looking at?

The primary reason to use them

Consider how annoying it is to navigate not-so-mobile friendly sites on a smartphone. Make yours the friendly, easy site for mobile users.

Make your customers’ life easier. Make it easier for them to visit your site, visit the right page and share something about your business that they want to share.

Ask anyone in the publishing business about pass-along numbers. They’re important to readership, so much so that they claim pass-along readership as an asset to advertisers.

Transfer that thought to your website, catalog, ads, trade show materials, demo products and other materials. Do they need a QR code so that people can view/share them easily?

In many cases, I think so.

Puit d’Amour from St. Honoré Boulangerie

This past week, I had the pleasure of visiting the still somewhat chilly seaside of Oregon thanks to a handful of out of town appointments.

In between the productive parts of the week, we managed to visit a couple of western Oregon wineries.

While a good time was had by all, I found it interesting how different each winery’s tasting room experience was designed to sell.

The Fancy One

This winery, created originally as a farm by a Montanan from Butte, was a bit upscale, sizable and very clean. It was a long-established place, noting that “long established” means “since 1980 or so”.

They’re that new because ash from Mount St. Helens’ eruption killed most crops in the area, changing the soil for decades to come.

The room said “old money” (dark, massive woods). While there were a few sweatshirts available, the retail portion of the room was all about the wine. Lots of it. Information from two inconsistently dressed but very sharp wine servers was on target, friendly and as detailed as you wanted. They clearly loved talking wine.

The Spartan One

This tasting room had a simple, fuss-free entry off of their gravel parking lot behind the wine production area. There’s a bar, a few barstools and an area clearly used for packing shipments. All in the tasting room. The lone wine steward was reasonably well-educated about the wine but didn’t really provoke the conversation.

The Homey One

This one was very new, expecting to bottle their own wine from their own grapes for the very first time this year. Previously, they’ve made wine using grapes from nearby vineyards.

The tasting room was homey, if not a bit cluttered with every wine accessory and kitsch you could think of. A yellow lab was chilled out on the floor. A guitarist was just outside the tasting room’s open door, playing in shaded patio seating area. Unfortunately the wine at this place wasn’t very good. The staff was right at home, downright friendly and maybe even too at home if that’s possible.

The Experienced One

This winery was almost 20 years old. Their marketing materials (online) referenced comments by a well-known reviewer. The tasting room was small, uncluttered and while it had wine accessories, they include only those focused on a better wine experience (vs. coasters and talking corkscrews).

Staff was knowledgeable and friendly in an average sort of way. Nothing bad, but nothing outstanding.

What struck me

While we didn’t visit all of the wineries (there are quite a few), the ones we did visit took very different approaches to their goal – presumably that of selling wine.

In every tasting room, there was little to take home other than wine that would bring you back to them to buy more. Few items had a website address on them – at least those that you could take with you.

No one asked us for contact information, not even those who sold us a bottle of wine.

In some cases, there were Oregon wine country brochures and/or county-specific winery marketing association brochures, rather than winery-specific info.

Every winery but the “Fancy One” was out of “wine menus”. These are descriptive sheets about each of their wines that left you room to take notes and perhaps note which one you prefer over another and why. In two different places, the only one they had was leftover from a Memorial Day special event – in both situations, it was the last one they had.

Why is this important?

How will they choose?

Out of the 40+ wineries in that Oregon county, during our visit they often have but ONE chance to get a visitor to fall in love with their place, their wine, their mystique, and the grapes that only they know how to nurture.

These small facilities (small in the wine world) sell at most one wine in retail locations. Some sell only at the winery. That’s right – they have no retail presence.

Ordinarily, you’d want these visitors to ask their local store for your wine, but they often can’t. Their small production (number of cases produced annually) prevents widespread distribution. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to get them loving your stuff quickly in that situation.

Think about trying to penetrate (much less stand out in) mainstream retail wine shelf space the next time you walk into a grocery that carries wine (or a wine center store). It’s like looking at the salad dressing bottle shelves at WalMart. Your eyes glaze over at all the choices.

When the mind is presented with a zillion choices, one of two things tends to happen. People take the default choice (Gallo?, Wishbone?) or they make no choice at all. Next time you’re in your local grocery, watch people look at the wine shelves. They’ll look and look and in many cases, they’ll give up and take a Gallo (or whatever they saw on TV recently, or whatever is on sale).

Why? Because no one stands out in that environment. That’s why you see more and more outlandish labels and wine names. They know their bottles are on a shelf with 200 others so they’ll do A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to catch your eye.

What do you want me to do next?

Knowing that the competition (where you might not be stocked) often caters to “How much?”, why wouldn’t you try to hook folks while they’re in your tasting room? It’s the best possible situation for the winery. They can’t grab a Gallo. They can shop by price, but they still get to taste before they buy. They have experts to help them choose what fits their taste buds and their budget.

There’s something else critical about that the tasting room visitor: She walks in the front door with a sign over her head that says “I like wine and I’m willing to drive all the way here to try YOURS.”  Think about how often you get the opportunity to make a first impression on someone who has tipped their hand that strongly.

What does the winery want them to do next? Beyond taking home a case (or even a single bottle), they want these visitors to go home and order more of their wines online (if they can). They want them to ask their local store to stock or custom order them. They want their visitors want them to go to the DailyGrape and watch Gary‘s reviews of their wines and then order from him.

If that’s what you want them to do, you have to make it easy.

And now, it’s your turn.

Now…think about the “browsers” who enter your business. Think about the first time buyers and, where appropriate, the tourists who enter your business.

How do you “stick” in their minds? How do you help them return, even if all they can do is return to your website?

Wineries have to deal with customers in states (like Montana) who cannot (easily) have wine shipped to them due to arcane laws put in place (and kept there) by fear-driven trade associations.

In one way or another, we all have situations like that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take every step possible to make it easy to buy. How are you making it “easy to buy” even for your customers who have to exert effort to do so?

Let’s simplify that a bit: How are you making your stuff easy to buy?

What do you want them (your visitors) to do next?

Where’s the milk?

So simple.

Yet in decades of visiting grocery stores, it’s the first time I’ve seen one of these.

A laminated yellow letter sized index to where things are, hanging at eye level at the end of each row at the back of the store.

Kudos to Food City management for paying attention to common sense, inexpensive, efficient, easy to use solutions to customer needs that everyone else has missed. Note: A card at both ends of the aisle would be even better.

During the summer, the area where this store is located becomes engorged with tourists and timeshare owners. Often, they are new to the area and shopping in this Food City for the very first time.

For a first time customer who wants to spend their time relaxing rather than taking an inordinate time to shop in an unfamiliar grocery store, they’re a blessing and a serious time and frustration saver.

Is there a yellow card that would help your customers?

photo credit: Anonymous Account

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that there were some “numbers you might care about“.

Examples we talked about included figuring out the costs to obtain both a new prospect/lead and a new customer.

In prior discussions, I’ve also suggested that you need to be thanking your customers, following up with them, tracking referrals that customers (and others) make, checking to see that more time than usual hasn’t passed since their last purchase, and so on.

And then…I get emails.

Many of them tell me I’m nuts because no one has time to do all that and that I must be making it up. Others get it and they ask HOW to get all that stuff done.

GETTING STUFF DONE

Here’s part one of a primer on getting this stuff done.

What I mean by “primer” is that it’s simple and you don’t have to buy anything fancy or expensive, nor do you need to do anything geeky. You *can*, of course, but it’s not a requirement.

Start with these tools:

• A free calendar (banks, insurance agents and others hand them out all the time). A large one-month-per-page desk calendar will help if you feel the need to splurge.
• a free pen/pencil (ditto)
• a $0.99 yellow pad

We’ll keep it simple for now and create a process for each of these events:

• A new prospect contacts you
• A new customer buys for the first time.
• An existing customer buys again.
• Someone calls to make an appointment.
• You communicate with a prospect or customer.

DIRTY WORK

Now it’s time for the real work.

Use the yellow pad for these tasks:

• When a prospect contacts you, write their name on one of the yellow pad sheets. Write the date they first contacted you at the top of the sheet. Below or next to that, write “Last contact date” and keep it updated (yes, it’ll get a little messy, but this is a paper system). Ask them who to thank for sending them to you. Write down the answer as “Source”. It might be a person, an ad or something else.
• Keep a separate sheet for each prospect. Keep the sheets sorted by last name, unless you have a different way that works better for you.
• When a prospect becomes a customer by buying something, write a C in one of the upper corners of the page so you know they’re a customer. In addition, write the first date of purchase at the top of the page. Write “Last purchase date” next to or below it. Keep it updated each time they purchase. Use a calendar on the internet to figure how out many days since they last bought. Write that down too.
• When contacting (or contacted by) a customer or prospect, write a summary of each contact on their sheet. Indicate briefly their satisfaction level.

Use the calendar to remind you to perform these tasks:

• Record appointments. Make note of them on the prospect/customer sheet so you can follow up as well as thank them.
• Follow up with a note a few days (if that’s the right timing) after a new customer buys for the first time. Write the follow up on the appropriate date as soon as they buy.
• Follow up with a customer after an on-site delivery or service to make sure all is well. If a staff member or contractor is doing the work, use the follow up to make sure that they were on-time, clean, courteous and took care of the customer’s needs.

Do these every day:

• Check the calendar for follow ups, appointments, thank yous and such. Make them that day. Don’t get behind or you’ll never do them.
• Check the contact sheets to make sure that customers are being properly taken care of. Your “satisfaction level” comments should feed this process.
• Check the contact sheets for customers who haven’t bought in at least a month (or whatever time frame makes sense). Follow up to see why they haven’t been back  and include that on the sheet. If a particular competitor is involved, make note of that.

BOOOOOOORINNNNNNG!

Yes, this is mundane stuff.

It’s also exactly the same stuff that *so many businesses* fail at day-in and day-out. If you can’t get the basics right, you need to fix them.

Disclaimer: The computer guy half of my head insists that I remind you that manual processes and yellow pads don’t scale well (and eventually not at all), meaning that what works for 20 or 100 customers doesn’t work worth a darn for 500, 1000 or 10000.

Because paper doesn’t scale, I know what happens next. You get busy and eventually, you just won’t do the work. This happens despite the realization that doing all that stuff is at least part of the reason you got so busy.

If you do realize there’s a connection there, then you’ll either decide to introduce some technology or you’ll get some help. This kind of work is ideal for a stay-at-home parent, retiree or similar.

Crude? Perhaps. Understanding the value of these tasks – and of a tool that automates much this labor – is easier after doing it the hard way. This effort is just as valid for a four-star restaurant as for an oil change shop.

photo credit: Sister72

Thursday was the first day of retail, walk-in Verizon iPhone sales in the U.S.

Normally a visit to our VZW store is guaranteed to consume 60-90 min, even here in rural Montana. They’re usually busy, so you sign in on a screen and they call your name in the order you arrive.

If you set your expectations at that 60-90 min, you’re not so annoyed when you finally get to leave.

Fast forward to the end of Thursday. My wife comes home, saying she wants to go get her phone.

I’m thinking “Oh man, its the first day. Its gonna be nuts.” Based on past history, I expect at least 2 hours.

The Surprise

We walk in and they are hammered. Even so, they still have 3-4 people standing around freed up, waiting for wanna-be hipsters.

We get someone right away. We pay, the Verizon guy moves her contacts from her Blackberry to the iPhone 4. The phone activates in 27 seconds and we leave in a total of 10 minutes.

TEN MINUTES. Someone put some logistics work into this rollout.

I’m FLOORED that we got in and out of their store with a phone switch in 10 minutes on the first day of retail sales, especially given that a normal day takes an hour on most occasions.

I talk to someone later and find out that after several hours in line, a guy in Seattle called to say he was still 8 blocks from the store.

10 minutes = Montana fringe benefits.

photo credit: the half-blood prince

Last week a Flathead Beacon reader sent me a nice note about a column that he liked, and while doing so, posed a question.

He said “One thing I am dying to read from you, is how do you get rid of a pain in the butt client — or a pathological recreational shopper — or the perfectionist from hell — without him or her poisoning your other customers?”

He’s not in for what he probably expected.

In my experience, few clients really, truly need to be fired (aka “gotten rid of”).

Why not just fire them?

Three reasons:

• If they really, truly are worth firing, it’s often easier to get them to fire themselves without any negative consequences for you. Raise the bar on what it takes to become/remain a customer. The benefits of doing this are substantial.
• If they aren’t worth firing but are simply a thorn in your side, it’s the person in the mirror (you and your business) that needs to make changes. Once the thorny customer is satisfied, they usually become one of your biggest fans. I’ve seen it time and time again.
• How hard is it to get a new customer? What does it cost in time, effort and money?

As I said, if they really need to go, I prefer to work things out so that they fire themselves. But that isn’t the question he asked, so let’s address it.

Back to the question

Let’s do the easy one first – The “pathological recreational customer”.

Some things to consider:

• Are they coming into your store just to get warm? Obvious…maybe, but be careful. More on that soon.
• Are they shopping for someone else?
• Are they a mystery shopper?
• Are they investigating but not personally planning to buy? The smart ones aren’t going to tip their hand until price comes up and the business is ready to buy.
• Did they randomly walk into your store?
• Are they doing price comparisons on your store for a competitor? Note: anyone with a smart phone can do this. Get over it. In fact, get over price as the ONLY competitive edge. Part of your edge, fine. All of your edge? Not so fine.
• Is their recreational shopping a burden to your business?

Have you talked to them? “I notice that you like to browse through our store but you haven’t become a customer. Is there something you need that we don’t offer?” and take the conversation from there. Again, be careful. You gain nothing from embarrassing a (potential) customer, but there is plenty to lose.

Keester pain

The next easiest one is the “Pain in the Butt customer”.

Let’s consider the reason they’re a pain. It could be one or more of these:

• The customer is just one of those angry-at-the-world kinds of people.
• The customer is not being treated in a manner that meets or exceeds their expectations.
• The customer is not being treated well by anyone’s definition.
• The customer bought a product or service that doesn’t meet or exceed the expectations you set, which again could mean that you didn’t set any. Sometimes called “merchantability”, we ask the question “Is the product/service reasonably able to solve the problem or fill the need it was being sold for?”
• The customer has unreasonable expectations.

Note the operative word? Expectations. Do a better job of setting them.

The pain in the butt can most often be turned into your best reference by simply becoming their advocate.

Boy, it’s hot in here

The “perfectionist from hell” is the one you’ll be most tempted to get rid of. Problem is, they often fit into the “keester pain” category.

More often than not, they’re really an indicator that your product line or services are missing one or more tiers of service at the high end. Yep. It’s probably an opportunity. Isn’t that cool?

People like this often have high personal accountability standards and (right or not) hold others to those same standards. Your regular products and services at their regular prices aren’t a good fit for them and their appearance of perfectionism is a good indicator of that.

Add another level.

A higher quality product with a greater level of service attracts a customer who might be a perfectionist and is also willing to pay more for that level of quality.

It’s also a great way of defining expectations for the customer BEFORE they make the purchase and allowing them to choose how they’re served.

It’s Chevy Suburban vs. Cadillac Escalade. Both have a market.

photo credit: Lordcolus

A lot of thoughts come to mind both ways about Wal-Mart‘s effect on local businesses and consumers.

No shortage of them are provoked by this Forbes op/ed saying that the lack of access to Wal-Mart in NYC is actually a tax, and continues by stating that building a WalMart in NYC is economic stimulus.

For example, the author ignores the local sourcing that WalMart used to do during its “Buy American” phase. He also fails to discuss that when left enough time in a competitive market devoid of Wal-Mart, poorly run local businesses tend to fail anyway.

What do you think?

photo credit: James Jordan

Recently, I stopped into a niche retail business for the very first time.

They’ve done a nice job with it. Haven’t been open long, so some of the obvious things I’d suggest to make the place a real customer magnet weren’t in place yet.

I have a feeling they might get there, but time will tell.

What worries me most about my visit is that they did nothing to see that I’d return…

• I wasn’t asked how I’d be using their product – and it’s a natural question for them, not a nosy none-of-your-business one.
• I wasn’t offered any additional information showing all the other items they make.
• I wasn’t asked to check out their Facebook page, which will someday hopefully be full of ways to use their product.
• There was nothing letting me know that another business in town uses their product, so that if I really loved it I could go there too.
• There was nothing in the store or on the products that included their website address on it – including the receipt or the label on the product.
• I wasn’t asked if I’d like to be notified when they make special stuff. Doesn’t matter whether that notification happens by phone, text message, Facebook, email list or even a printed newsletter, just notify me.
• I wasn’t asked to let them know how I liked their stuff by going to their site or Facebook page (which also doesn’t encourage this) or heaven forbid, filling out a self-addressed postcard or picking up the phone.
• I wasn’t given a coupon or “send-a-friend” promotion so that I could tell my friends about them if I liked their stuff (that’s also what the Facebook Like button is for).

Doing ALL of this might be a bit pushy. Doing NONE of this is a big mistake.

Look, I know they are a new place and some of this takes time to get going.

You may even think I’m being hard on them, but I’m nowhere near as hard on them as the market will be.

No Second Chances

Re-elected politicians get second chances. Folks who make mistakes, like Michael Vick and Martha Stewart, get second chances.

Businesses are rarely granted that luxury.

You have to take advantage of the “honeymoon of newly open”.

During your honeymoon, people will…

• Visit your store even if they don’t need what you sell.
• Tell their friends that they visited, even when they might not normally do so.
• Click “Like” in Facebook just to give you a little push, when they might not ever use that button.
• Cut you some slack for mistakes like untrained staff and other stuff that happens when you’re still trying to get all the kinks out.

When you operate a niche business, not every one is going to decide to be your customer. Those who do more or less raise their hands and say “me, me, me!”

When they do that, your job is to make sure to remind them to come back regularly, not just when they remember to return. Leave it to them to return at random and you might not see them for months.

Make the honeymoon last forever

Customers are hard to replace, even in a good economy. It’s particularly difficult to go out and find 100 new customers tomorrow because revenues are tight.

It’s a lot easier (and smarter) to earn just one new customer a week, keep it up year after year, and do whatever it takes keep most of them.

So let’s go over this again.

• You love whatever you do so much that you quit your job to do it. That’s great.
• You spent most of what’s left of your liquid retirement money to fund the business.
• It cost more than you thought it would to get going, so you borrowed from your in-laws, your family and friends.

After doing all that, please don’t tell me you’re going to ignore the very people who said “me,me,me” by letting them walk out the door as if they walked into a box store.

Keep that up and you’ll be back at your old job in no time – if you can get it back.

You didn’t like that job anyway, so please do these things for yourself and your business.

photo credit: andrewasmith

Recently, we were talking about making it easy to buy a TV, but this stuff isn’t just about TVs.

Merchandising is both an art and a science.

Big business invests millions studying it and testing what works and what doesn’t. You should pay attention to it as well to the extent that you can.

The goal is still to make it easy to buy.

Is your grocery like every other one that created high-margin convenience stores by putting ALL of your milk at the back of the store?

Sure, that ploy works. If it works that well, why not move the checkout stands to the back of the store? Or make people move through your store like a Disney ride – by exiting through a maze of “Mommmmmmyyyyyy, can I have that?” impulse items?

Or do you keep a small milk chiller near the front of your store like Stew Leonard‘s store does?

These days, even the convenience stores have the milk at the back of the store. While we chase that rabbit, ever wonder why liquor stores don’t carry milk and bread? I suspect some do, I just don’t recall seeing one.

Grow (and think) beyond your needs and wants. Serve your customers like no one else.

photo credit: x-ray delta one

Jeffrey Gitomer* sums up a lot of understanding of people, sales, psychology and more when he says “People don’t like to be sold but they love to buy.”

Do you make it easy for them to buy?

Really? Let’s talk about it.

Beyond impulse

Are the things you sell displayed in a manner that will make it easy for your customers to select exactly what’s best for them?

Or…are they displayed in a manner that maximizes how many things you can get on the shelf?

The question is prompted by the recent untimely and tragic death of our old TV**. I recently had the (ahem) “luxury” of shopping for a replacement HDTV after our old one finally gave up the ghost.

I had a budget in mind, so after a little browsing on the net to see what was new, what features and standards were must have (and which ones were not), my youngest son and I caroused around town to the usual suspects (minus one that was closed) to find a new box.

The brands and models were pretty much the same from store to store, for the most part.

But something was different

What differed – radically so – was the presentation.

Two examples of the several we visited:

Store A

• Had units scattered about in no particular order. It’s possible they were grouped very roughly by price.
• Their display was moderately helpful for a standing customer (no seats) because half of the sets were more or less just below eye level. The rest were barely off the floor, which didn’t show off those models well.
• Their pricey 3D sets were presented well, in a manufacturer-provided display with goggles.
• Their sets displayed the same picture on most sets so you could compare. It was a mix of sports and scenic shots and “regular” stuff.

Store B

• Had sets jammed so close together and displayed at differing angles above, at and well below eye level (again, no seats). The first thing I thought of was the clothing stores with racks and aisles packed so tightly that you can’t walk between the racks. They didn’t have their sets displayed in a manner that was designed to encourage you to take the time to browse, evaluate and buy. If you knew what you wanted and they had that item in stock, no problem.
• Had models scattered all over the store with no rhyme or reason. Not grouped by size, price, features, manufacturer or any other sensible criteria. They were clearly just shoved where they’d fit, making it almost impossible to compare two closely priced or sized models.
• 3D sets were just…where they were. It would’ve been impossible to evaluate them properly as displayed.
• The most expensive (and amazing) set was a Sony non-3D set whose picture and specs were way over the top the best we saw all day. Yet this set was presented in the middle of a row of stacked up stuff with cardboard boxes across from it in a narrow aisle where your face was less than two feet from the massive screen. If I was the Sony rep for this store, Id be taking the manager out for a long chat. And their manager. And their manager.
• Their sets displayed a buffet of content, with so much variety from screen to screen that was almost impossible to compare models.

Where’s the recliner?

Some audio stores figured this out before the box stores killed all but the high-end audio places: Build a room that presents your gear in its best light (or sound, as it were).

If I’m selling TVs, I want a small number of my very best selling TVs a normally lit room (like people’s homes) with a recliner, coffee table, couch, etc sitting around. I want them paired in good, better, best pairs with the 6 best selling, best quality units I have in those three price ranges. I want them to sit down and take a look. Toss em the remote and let them visualize that sucker in their own home.

All the other models, if I have to have all them, can be presented grouped by size within price range and paired so I can compare like models. Remember, you want to create an environment that makes it easy for the customer to make the best choice for their needs and budget. You don’t want them walking out frustrated because they learned nothing from shopping in your store.

The reason to make a sale is to get a customer, not the other way around. Your business is about customers, not TVs or Kitchen Aid mixers or snowblowers.

Wally

Yes, I know the mass merchandiser in you is going crazy. You may think want your store to look like Wal-Mart so that you sell them SOMETHING no matter what.

Well guess what? The best TV display for the buyer’s needs was…Wal-Mart’s. They were grouped by size within price range. No, there wasn’t a couch or a recliner. Yes, there was crazy-bright fluorescent lighting. Yes there were strollers 2 aisles over and video games beeping 20 feet away and a blue light special (whatever) announcement over the loudspeaker every 13 seconds.

Still, the layout was optimized on that wall to make it easy to choose a TV, not to make it easy to get all of them out of the box and on a shelf so we could say we did so.

Interesting that Wal-Mart would win in that department and not have the best price. Go figure.

*If you haven’t read Jeffrey, I suggest you do so. Good stuff. Start with “Customer Satisfaction is Useless“.

** Jim Rohn said “Poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.“  Meaning – educate yourself. And keep at it. Watch a little less TV, read a little more. Do better for yourself in the next year by spending time to better yourself.

photo credit: jesse.millan

One of the reasons that smart phones are so popular is that they provide a much better means of getting notified about any number of events, appointments and so on.

Your customers’ desire – if not need – to be notified is a critical aspect of your customer service planning.

In fact, these communications can be an essential difference between lousy or non-existent customer service, and good or even great customer service.

Working in the dark

For example, earlier this week I ordered some large format printing from a local vendor.

I spoke with them on the phone and because their website allows uploading documents,  I was able to upload the zipped graphics rather than make a 40 minute round trip drive to deliver the files and return to my office.

The vendor’s website said the file was accepted. About 30 minutes later, I hadn’t heard anything from the vendor, so I called them.

They hadn’t received the file and said that it must be “stuck” on the franchise system’s server and that they would surely find it.

At this point, they had my name and number and knew I wanted to get some work done. 3-4 years ago, I would have expected to babysit the job from start to finish because any business could stay open.

Despite having a confirmation from the web server, the file never appeared on their system… or they never looked for it.

Regardless, failure #1 was not following up with me to confirm that they had found it, or that they hadn’t and needed me to re-send it.

Tick, tick, tick

Two days go by. The promised completion date and time arrives without a message, so the natural thing for me to figure is that the job is complete.

45 minutes before closing time on the promised completion date, I call them. No answer.

Historically, they’re on the phone a good bit, so I don’t think much of it. I hop in the car and continue to call every few minutes during the 20 minute drive.

I arrive 10 minutes before the closing time listed on their website – the same closing time painted on the office door.

They’re closed up tight. With that 20 minutes wasted, I drive 20 more minutes home, having wasted 40 minutes and accomplished nothing.

I call and leave a message asking what happened, mostly resisting the urge to vent and ask them to call me to make sure my job is done and let me know what times they’ll be open the next day so I can pick up the job materials.

Silence

By mid-morning of the next day I’ve heard nothing.

I call. They know nothing about the job or the upload. Turns out some health issues caused early closure the day before, so I can’t really be upset about that…BUT here’s that notify thing.

They could have left a note on the door about the early closure.

They could have left a comment on their phone system about the early closing.

They didn’t.

Notification.

Stepping up

At this point, the notification failures have added up, but the person in charge steps up a notch.

I get the file to them using another means and we make arrangements for pickup. One of their guys is coming to my area later in the day, so we arrange to meet. He will call when he’s close.

He calls, we meet, I get my stuff. All good. Today’s interaction has gone much better because the communication and notification was active and frequent.

What should happen

A few weeks ago, I uploaded a job to Staples’ web print center, which routes print jobs to a store about 20 minutes away.

I received a confirmation email shortly after the upload.

I received another email telling me the job was complete.

That’s how it works every time. And that software is available to any print shop. It isn’t something special that Staples developed.

Notification.

Remember, customer service is marketing.

Someone at Brookstone is paying attention.

Maybe it’s Brookstone policy. Maybe it’s the person that just happens to be running the Brookstone counter where Jason walked in.

No matter what, there’s a huge lesson in this brief comment from Jason Falls.



You’re in an airport and you buy a battery. OF COURSE you want it charged.

Someone thought about this enough to actually have charged ones available.

Huge. This is the kind of thing you think of IN ADVANCE in order to make loyal fans out of “mere customers”.

How can you Brookstone your business like this?

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

That product line. I mean.

It’s hiding in your community, right inside your business.

I’m talking about the product or service that you sell locally.

The same one that you can probably sell online (or elsewhere) and become known as a regional, national or global specialist with, rather than limiting yourself to local business and possibly constraining yourself to the local economy – good or bad.

What about the box?

You might think you do things that can’t be sold outside of your neighborhood.

In some cases, you might be right.

But have you really honestly looked?

Think of reasons why people/businesses elsewhere might need what you do rather than focusing on the reasons why it won’t work, why it’ll be a hassle (sales are a hassle? Hmmm) and why others will think you’re nuts (remembering that they probably thought you were nuts for starting your own business).

You might have to repackage something or deliver it in a vastly different form, but who cares?

I can guarantee you one thing….your deposit slip doesn’t.

photo credit: Zach Dischner

As I noted yesterday, my current survey here at Business is Personal asks “What’s your biggest marketing challenge?”

Yesterday, we discussed why 25% of respondents have said “Making time to do the marketing” and how they should go about fixing that.

Today, the next largest group (a very close second) is those who said “Differentiating my business from competitors” or offered a response that effectively means the same thing.

Consider “adding air” to the product or service you sell.

What I mean by air is something that:

• Adds substantial value – from the customer’s viewpoint – to what you sell.
• Doesn’t add substantial (or any) cost to what you sell (this is why people call it “air”)
• Competitors haven’t bothered to add to their offering, so your product/service looks better/more complete, has a higher perceived/actual value.

The net result is that you can ask a higher price. You’ll stand out from the other guy.

Hopefully by now, I don’t have to say “Air is not lame, low value puffery”.

Example Air

Let’s say you sell premium brand house paint. Every hardware store and home improvement box store sells premium paint.

How in the world would you stand out? You can’t likely compete on price (thankfully) because they buy more in a month than you buy in a year.

Rather than try to meet the local box store’s price, talk about the time your customer will waste driving into town, dealing with traffic and talking to paint people who maybe don’t know paint. Sure, this means YOUR paint people will actually need to know paint, but they should anyhow.

Still need to add some air? You could negotiate with a local painting company to include drop cloths and stir sticks with the paint crew’s business name and 24-hour emergency number. Oh and print “Tired of this? We’ll finish the job.” on those items. Who hasn’t gotten 20 feet up on a ladder (or bit off more than they could chew) and wondered why in the world they didn’t get a pro to do the job?

Oops, I forgot a stir stick

Think about the last time you bought something that required additional pieces/parts. Doesn’t it annoy you to get home and find out you forgot something? Shouldn’t the sales / register staff where you bought that something take low-key steps to make sure you’ve got all the stuff you need?

Almost everyone complains about not having enough time to do (whatever), so go out of your way to save your customers’ time – and make note of it. How long would it take to drive from your premium paint aisle to the paint aisle at Home Depot? Put up a sign in your paint aisle noting that and thanking them for supporting a locally owned business.

Sell some air. Stand out. Be the best paint store in your county. Be the ONLY choice for someone who needs a can of premium paint, not because no one else sells it, but because no one else sells it and takes care of paint customers like you do.

After doing all that… your biggest marketing challenge WON’T be “Differentiating my business from competitors”.

photo credit: powerbooktrance

It must be all those trees we have. They’re so full of customers that businesses just don’t need any more.

As you know, I strongly encourage folks to buy local.

The flip side of that is that locals have to EARN the business. Not just because you’re here, but because you kick butt at what you do.

Jeepers

I called a couple of stores about getting a sound bar for my son’s Jeep as a gift to acknowledge a major accomplishment he recently completed.

One said: “We don’t have them but we have the speakers for them.”

The Department of Obviousness requires that I inform you that the holes in these sound bars are designed to fit common speaker sizes so that retailers don’t have to stock custom speakers.

After checking the store, another said: “I don’t think we can get anything like that.”

No one said “We don’t carry that, but I can get it here tomorrow and install it for you. When would you like to bring the Jeep in?”

The last answer is what keeps people from buying car audio gear on the internet.

The point

While I’m only talking about a $200 purchase plus installation, the big picture was missed.

The size of this purchase isn’t the point.

What you *must* get across to your staff (no matter what you do) is that the real long-term reason to make a sale is to *get a new customer*. 
After that, it’s their challenge to keep us as customers.

I suspect car audio industry research tallies the average annual spending of customers. If that figure is only $100, at one new customer per week, you’d add an average of $5200 to your gross sales per year.

Your market is no different.

Has dealing with your store become so unremarkable that customers would rather pay for shipping and wait a few days?

Walking to Missoula

I was in a cloth store recently, buying some material so a local business owner could make some custom neckerchiefs for my Scouts.

They had less material than I needed. They offered to order more, advising me that it could take 3 to 6 weeks.

They didn’t mention their corporate-run online store. I checked it myself, finding an in-stock quantity of only three yards. That wasn’t how much the local store had, it indicated (incorrectly, I suspect) the corporate’s in-stock quantity.

Meanwhile, the Missoula store had plenty. I know this because the local store is advanced enough to be able to check this from their handheld terminals (nice!). When I asked them about getting it from Missoula, they said it would take “about 3 weeks”.

I can *walk* to and from Missoula in three weeks.

Trucking in the wrong direction

Recently I was outside of Missoula at a truck stop and bought a small toolkit for a task that had me sidelined on the road. As the cashier finished ringing it up, I realized I’d bought the wrong thing. Yes, my fault.

While standing at the counter, before the salesperson walked away, before picking the item up from the counter, while putting my wallet back in my pocket, I asked to return it, unopened.

Without a second’s delay, they said “We have a strict corporate return policy. No returns.” 
Even if the unopened item has never left the store, much less the cash register.

It’s early on Saturday evening and there is no weekend on-premises manager. She won’t be back until Monday and no one else is allowed to take responsibility.

Stunningly “customer-friendly”.

Earl Nightingale once said something like “To be successful, observe what the majority in your market are doing, then do the opposite”.

These are good examples of his advice.

photo credit: wildxplorer

Yesterday we talked about a retail experience that could have been better – mostly by doing something to encourage a customer to call you next time.

Did you notice the cost of yesterday’s suggestion? ZERO.

Today, we’ll talk about an experience related to yesterday’s story: Stock levels.

When you go to the websites of most retail stores these days, you can see stock level information. In some cases, you’ll see it for each store location.

In most of the big chain stores, this information is as close to real time as you can expect – in other words, if you check the website from your car and it says that 52″ Sony you have your eye on is the last one in stock, the chances that it’s still in the store are very good.

It might be in someone’s cart, but it should still be in the store.

In stock…maybe

When you start working with local and regional retailers, the information quality tends to go downhill a bit.

What I see is a combination of these things:

• “Call for stock info” (or a similar message)
• “Item in stock”
• “23 in stock”

The unfortunate reality of this is that none of this info is accurate.

If you’re going to have this stuff on your site – make it accurate, even if it has to say “Item in stock as of month, day, year” or “stock status updated every Friday”.

The alternative is having in-stock inventory info on your site, which your customer believes. In some cases, they make plans based on that info.

And then they find out that the info really means across your entire retail system as of a week ago, not of their local store. And even that might not be accurate.

If you don’t have the systems in place to keep this info accurate, ask them to contact you instead of relaying poor quality (inaccurate, outdated) information.

If you can get the info on your site up to date (and many of you probably can), then make it accurate to within an hour, or 5 minutes or real time – but state the accuracy for your customer’s convenience.

Remember, if people can’t trust your site…they’ll stop coming to it.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Ever hear the term BSOD?

It’s an acronym for “Blue Screen of Death”, which is what you get when Windows barfs all over itself.

In my experience, you get that rare (for me) “I’m a PC” explosion when hardware is failing (and sometimes when you seriously, royally messed up).

Last week after a litany of BSODs on a 30 month old laptop (6 months longer than the typical lifespan in my use – thanks HP), I decided I needed to deal with this issue sooner rather than later.

Because I like The 3/50 Project, I called a local authorized retailer of the brand of laptop I had my eye on. I asked if they had any one of the standard models (a very common one) in stock.

“No, but we can order it for you.”

I replied “Sorry, I was looking to buy from a local company.”

Remembering why you have a storefront

You have a retail storefront. You’ve paid the manufacturer to become an authorized retailer (and continue to pay for co-op advertising, ongoing training, and so on). Yet…you don’t stock the product and you suggest that the service you can provide after all that investment in time and money will be to order one for me?

I can find Amazon.com (or whatever) on my own, thanks.

Retailers have complained incessantly about unfair competition from e-commerce stores, but not enough have done something about it. Many retail store failures have been blamed on online buying, while few get blamed on the owner / management / employees.

E-commerce succeeds because goods and services can be shopped for 24 hours a day, from any location,  in “any” store from anywhere.

Why do some retailers still try to make shopping right here in town *harder* than shopping online? I just don’t get it.

Instant gratification goes both ways

People say e-commerce is all about instant gratification. That people can buy online and immediately feel the rush of a successful purchase.

Horse hockey. Instant gratification (or close enough) happens when I can drive 18 minutes, walk into the store, plop down my Bert and Ernie-branded Mastercard and walk out with a product under my arm after being helped by a salesperson or clerk who acts like it matters that I walked into their store.

Ecommerce makes me wait at least until tomorrow. Where’s the instant gratification in that?

Retail stores often fail because they don’t exist to serve the customer, or they don’t recognize that the reason for getting a sale is to get a new customer.

This local store lost a $2000 sale in a two minute phone call – and may also have lost a long-term customer, which is even worse from my perspective.

I called a Montana-based chain store who deals in the same product and they had them in stock. But they’re “just” a retailer. They don’t do consulting or offer anything of that nature like the other business does – so it doesn’t matter all that much to them whether I’m a long-time customer or not, at least from the perspective of that purchase.

What should have happened?

What should the first guy should have done when I told him I wanted to make a local purchase? He should referred me to the other local dealer and offered to help if I needed it (since it’s obvious to *anyone* that the other store doesn’t do that sort of thing).

You want more customers. Do what’s in *their* best interest and it’ll come back to you. Remember, I came to you to ask for help. Instead of solving my problem, you offered to do what I can do from my La-Z-Boy.

Call it karma if you wish. Call it good business. Regardless, think of what the customer is trying to accomplish and help them do so. Next time, they might think of you again – and you might actually have the item they need in stock.

Tomorrow, we’ll address that stock issue.

photo credit: Blyzz

A number of vendors that I used to do business with waste my time and theirs with their lame, cookie cutter attempts to get me to renew a subscription, update my software or renew some other sort of thing I use to have.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that they made the effort, but the effort made is usually so weak that it makes whatever is left of the relationship even weaker.

Sometimes I’m not interested anymore and I unsubscribe. Other times I just hit delete because for whatever reason, I’m just not ready to unsubscribe. I may be planning to buy sometime in the future, but not just yet…

One of the vendors who emails me like clockwork does so once a month to remind me that my subscription to their data, software and newsletter has lapsed. Sure, those emails are automated, but I don’t mind because 1) I’ve done business with them and 2) they don’t nag the crap out of me. I can depend on a single monthly email.

Keep in mind that these emails don’t LOOK automated, but I know they are. They look and are written like someone actually cared about what the email says – and that makes all the difference.

A Surprise

But today was different. Better.

I received this email from SearchEngineNews.com:

Hi Mark,

It can sometimes be challenging to find a graceful way to give a gift. These days many people are suspicious or cynical. They’ve been jaded by so many nefarious schemes with hidden agendas. But in spite of all that, I am going to try to give you something anyway …something that is truly valuable and doesn’t have any strings attached.

Here goes.

You, as a past subscriber of Planet Ocean’s SearchEngineNews.com, raised your hand as someone with interest in ranking at the top of the Search Engines. I can only guess that you may still be interested. And assuming that you are, I am giving you a full and free membership to SearchEngineNews.com for the rest of the year — complete access through December 31st, 2009.

This gift is without strings or restrictions. It is simply a gift. You may download the most recent UnFair Advantage Book, gain access to all of the SearchEngineNews.com articles and expert reports, peruse the archives, use each and every one of the resources and test your site against your competitor’s by running it through our amazing tool, the Site Strength Indicator.

Now I hear you asking “why.”

We’ll it isn’t because we are desperate for members. On the contrary, ever since 1996, Planet Ocean has had a better year than the previous one — And this year is no exception. Our membership revenues have never been higher. 2009 has blessed us with our best year…in spite of all the so-called economic doom and gloom in the news lately.

I’m not bragging–exactly the opposite. I am humbled by our success and proud of our Planet Ocean people who have worked together to succeed in the face of challenge and adversity.

But most of all, I am thankful for having had you as a subscriber. And, this is a chance for me to give *you* something that is affordable for us and *could easily be more valuable than money* to you during what many are predicting to be a continuation of the challenges being faced all over the economic landscape.

Personally, I feel energized by the opportunities upon us. My 57 years of life experience have taught me that, in good times, anybody can succeed. But when the industry turns challenging, those of us with the best attitude, resources and information become the eagles who literally soar above the turmoil.

Hopefully you are already soaring like an eagle. And if not yet, then please allow me to put a little wind under your wings by gifting you with our researched information for ranking your business at the top. No strings attached, here is your login information for the October 09 issue of SearchEngineNews.com.

(login and link left out)

Again – Thank you,

Stephen Mahaney – CEO/Founder
Planet Ocean
75-1027 Henry St. 111A #301 · Kailua-Kona HI 96740-3154
800-334-5662, 808-329-5700

Yeah, it’s kinda long (and it was formatted narrower since it was an email – just in case you were wondering), but it is a really smart email. Why?

First – His product doesn’t have an incremental cost, so it doesn’t matter if he gives it away to the *right people*. Giving it away to just anyone would be a waste of time and server resources. Giving it away for a short time to lapsed customers who already are familiar with the product and saw enough value to subscribe in the past is absolutely the right thing to do. No selling needed. Just lay the fly on the water, right out there in front of his nose and let Mr. Rainbow take a look at it. If there’s no trout there, what’s the point?

Second – He isn’t getting my subscription $ right now anyhow, so (thanks to the lack of incremental cost) he isn’t losing anything by giving me 70 days of his product. That presumably will give me a chance to check it out again and remember how much I got out of it before my subscription lapsed, was forgotten or whatever the situation was.

Third – Rather than just saying “Hey, we want you back cuz we *really* miss your money, here’s a bribe”, he provides the “Reason Why”. He tells a story about what provoked him to do this, weaves in the state of the economy, and it all makes sense.

Your turn

What are you doing to get your lapsed customers back into the fold?

If you’re a retailer, did you lose them after a return? I know darned well you have the point of sale data there to figure that out. Get it out and crunch it. Find out which customers haven’t been back since they asked for a refund, exchange, return or what not. Did they fail to return intentionally because their last experience was about as pleasant as a spoonful of cold bacon grease?

If you run a restaurant, did you lose them after a party booking? Or a regular visit? Your loyalty program data should be able to tell you when they last visited and your point of sale data will tell you what they last bought. Don’t have a loyalty program? All your point of sale data is on little order pads? Do I really have to go there?

If you sell a service, you should be able to figure out from your point of sale data what they last had serviced (or what service they bought). Same question re: loyalty program and point of sale data.

No matter what you do, you should be able to identify the lapsed customers.

With that in hand, how will you get their attention and show them the value they’re missing out on?

Either Stephen figured it out, or had someone help him do it. Doesn’t matter which way as long as it got done.

photo credit: FreeWine

In four minutes. On a Sunday morning.

Something like that can be hard to find these days, but that’s exactly what Chris Matyszczy found when he contacted Amazon recently.

Sunday morning aside, is your staff providing 9am Monday morning service all week long?

Even at 4:45pm on a Friday?

Think about this – where will he buy his next book, or perhaps, the majority of books in the future?

Now you have a reason to provide service like this, if you didn’t already. If you need motivation for providing this kind of service (you shouldn’t, if you think about it): ask yourself this question…

Why should they buy from you instead of everyone else who sells what you do?

If you own the local bookstore in Chris’ town, what do you have to do to keep him from going to Amazon, Books a Million, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Powells and any of their online counterparts?

That’s a question on the minds of customers who haven’t been given a reason to want to spend their $ in only one place.

At least not yet.