Good Customer Service Creates Good Shopping Experience
Saturday, September 18, 2010, 6:00 PM | Leave Comment
Good customer service means creating entire shopping experience. In other words, if someone enters your place of click-and-mortar – CAM – business, from the moment customers step through the door of your business to the moment they walk out [or exit], your job is to make that experience a positive one and one in which they will come back again and again.
[Click-and-mortar – CAM – describes a store that exists online as well as in the physical world.] New customers should be able to have learned more and have gained pleasant experience so that they will repeat their visit many times over.
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Don’t open a shop unless you know how to smile
It’s an old Jewish proverb (from Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service) and it has proven time and again to be true. The basic mantra that is pressed upon in schools and businesses is “The customer is always right.” However, along with that, customer service must entail educating and informing customers about the business in general and a product in particular. It can be termed as total customer experience – on the pleasant side.
Good customer service begins with how you have laid out your CAM business and whether you were successful in making it easy for the customers to navigate and simply get around. It’s about an entire shopping experience. Your job is to make that experience a positive one and one in which they will want to come back.
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First impression is the last impression
Remember this old adage? I don’t agree with it entirely but there is some truth to it. If you have an online business [and who doesn’t?], your writing should show the happy and pleasant “face” of yours. It starts at the front of your CAM business. A clean, uncluttered entryway with clear signage directing them to departments [and categories.]
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Inform and educate
One of the roles of an independent CAM retailer is to make selections of merchandise based on their own knowledge and research. Along with that, it must help inform and educate the customer. Make sure that the shopper understands what they are buying. It can often help avoid returns later when they get home.
In a Nutshell
More than anything else, listen to your customers, even when they are complaining, or just simply wrong. Listening – and apologizing for mistakes is quite rare in retail settings these days. It can actually get wonderful results.
