In simplistic terms the customer experience and consequential satisfaction or otherwise of a customer delivered by any organisation can be divided into three key areas:

The competiveness/desirability/relevance of the product or services the organisation is providing. The effectiveness of the systems or processes to deliver that product or service to a customer, in other words – how easy are you to deal with? The way the staff in the organisation interact with its customers, ideally leaving them feeling they have been treated as an individual rather than being part of a process and, when appropriate, genuinely cared for.

For many retailers the principal focus is on the first two areas.  Certainly if the products or services you are offering don’t represent an attractive proposition for your target customers the business is destined for failure.  The shop environment plays an important part in the product proposition too and should reflect the market positioning of the product range – value led, aspirational or somewhere in between. 

The systems and processes are also very important as in a time pressed world nobody appreciates confusion, complication or errors.  In the retail sector, product knowledge is a key part of the process although it does cross over with, and plays a vital part in, the overall customer experience – attempting to read product information labels faster than the customer isn’t going to fool anyone!  This is particularly noticeable in complex product areas such as household electrical, technology or home furnishings, but basic product knowledge is no less important in those retailers whose ranges are principally self selection.   

However, so many organisations choose to pay only lip service to the third area of customer interaction, leading to the reputation the UK has for poor or inconsistent customer service. 

Perhaps customer interaction is so often neglected by businesses because it is much less tangible than tackling the other two areas, or perhaps it’s because it can be much more challenging and requires a long term view – it’s rarely a quick fix.  The benefits take longer to realise too as customers only really recognise a business is delivering an exceptional service experience when it is consistently repeated over a period of time.  So why do it? 

It should be obvious enough that a great experience is something customers will want to repeat and that will drive loyalty and consequently greater turnover and profit, especially if your closest competitors haven’t woken up to how powerful a differentiator this can be.  Some retailers do succeed in achieving sufficient differentiation on product alone, but in a world of the internet and global sourcing they are unusual and increasingly rare – it is also often short lived.  Some rely on being lean and efficient at process to drive profit growth, but there comes a point at which driving cost out of the business becomes impossible without differentiating in a negative way.  Even if the product assortment is highly attractive and the processes and systems are impeccably efficient the customer may well be left feeling:

“great product and service, but did they care?”

However, if the customer feels cared for as an individual at the end of the sale, that is likely to be their abiding impression of the business and enhance the pleasure or satisfaction of the purchase.  Taking the time to talk to customers about their individual needs rather that just processing a sale is a very effective way of discovering opportunities to sell them additional products too.  The business will start to develop an appealing personality in the eyes of its customers and that will make future purchases more likely, easier and consequently more enjoyable and profitable for both parties.  In that way it becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy.  So how do you start delivering a defined and differentiated customer experience though the employees?  Well, it’s not scripting cashiers to say “hello” and “thank you for shopping at ......” that’s missing the point altogether! 

It has to start with a very clear vision of what the business wants to be both internally for the employees and externally for the customers.  Ideally the vision should be the same or, at least, very similar as customer experience can’t be trained.  If it is to be genuine and have longevity it should be an external reflection of the organisation’s internal culture.   The vision needs to be communicated clearly and frequently to everyone in the organisation.  A simple, memorable statement often helps to do this.  Ritz Carlton hotels in the US are renowned worldwide for outstanding customer experience and have a very simple statement which applies both externally to guests and internally to employees:

Welcome

Wanted

Remembered

Cared For

Everything the business then does must align with that vision.  It starts with recruitment which should be focussed on identifying individuals with the personality and attitude that will deliver the organisation’s aims.  It’s perhaps an obvious statement that you can train a required skill such as product knowledge whereas you can’t train someone to enjoy talking to customers.   

Leadership plays a key part in creating a great customer experience and managers’ roles at every level must be structured to allow time in every day to lead and coach their teams.  Equally the teams’ roles must be structured to allow time for customers if they are primarily customer facing.  It sounds obvious, but so often selling assistants are tasked with so much administration, merchandising, ticketing and cleaning that a customer becomes an interruption to their working day!  This doesn’t necessarily mean recruiting more staff either.  Often a number of routine tasks or processes can be simplified or even omitted altogether.  Just because “we’ve always done it that way” doesn’t mean things can’t change.  Often the ‘difficult’ tasks that are carried out by managers such as dealing with complaints and queries can be delegated to a capable empowered team who will relish the extra responsibility, so enabling their managers to take on a more supportive coaching role.  That also allows managers the time to develop existing staff who may not historically have been recruited for personality and attitude and therefore may need support and guidance to change their behaviour. 

Measurement plays another vital part in improving and sustaining a great customer experience.  Customer feedback is the obvious route here and focus groups can be used to both define and track the experience being delivered. Comment cards and exit surveys can be a valuable way of regularly monitoring performance too, but the questions should be carefully crafted to measure the perception of the experience and not just the practical reality of what has been delivered.  A simple question such as ‘what was your impression of our business today?’ can be very revealing and offer so much more than ‘were your needs met?’  However, if a business wants to be really aspirational in its customer experience, customers will rarely be able to help as they will often base their feedback on preconceived expectations or experience of competitors.  Part of the business’ vision should be to deliver an experience that customers aren’t expecting and to set the bar for that at a very high level.  Having defined that experience a mystery shopping programme should be created to track, at least monthly, the progress in delivering those aspirational goals – that’s where the real differentiation starts to develop. 

The measurement statistics should be made part of the key performance indicators for the management team and ideally for every employee too.  That creates the opportunity for more coaching and leadership to improve performance and identify any weak spots or inconsistencies.  However, the statistics also provide a platform for recognition and reward, so often overlooked, and this plays a key role in developing performance.  It doesn’t have to be complicated either.  Often a simple thank you for a job well done or a particularly satisfied customer will have a significant impact as does a handwritten note which is increasingly seen as something very special in a world dominated by e-mail.

So what are the benefits?  As the business starts to develop its own personality delivered through its people instead of being just another high street fascia, customer loyalty will increase on the basis of a point of differentiation that few others attempt.  If repeated consistently over a significant period of time the experience delivered by the selling assistants starts to become synonymous with the identity of the business or brand.  They become trusted friends to their customers which, in turn, makes sales increases much easier.  Staff turnover and sickness are likely to diminish and productivity often increases too as employees have a greater sense of pride in their jobs.  When things do go wrong with the product or process, customers will be much more forgiving if they sense they are dealing with a retailer who really cares that they have been let down rather than just putting them through a complaint process.  As a consequence complaints are likely to reduce and are much less likely to escalate.  Over time, customers will become friendlier too as they come to learn that they don’t have to anticipate a potentially adversarial relationship with the business. 

In the current economic climate many businesses will, understandably, be looking at ways to reduce cost and to maintain if not grow profits.  However, retail staff costs can only be cut to a point, leaving an opportunity to differentiate the business through an asset that is already part of the cost structure.  Rather than substantial investment, it takes a huge amount of focus, energy and enthusiasm to move a business towards consistently delivering a defined and identifiable customer experience.  It also takes a significant amount of time to achieve, but it is a competitive battleground with currently very few players.  The differentiation customer experience delivers is not short lived which makes it an attractive proposition and a desirable goal.