Online or at the Shops? The Real Retail Experience!
With the increased online shopping, small retail shop owners are finding it challenging. Online business may prove lucrative but without a solid brand presence, growing competitiveness and higher costs on pay-per-click advertising, they still need to work hard to thrive.
Personally, I prefer the hunt and gather of the shop to the clinical and sometimes risky online purchase. Shopping is a sport or hobby for people like me – it gets us out of the house and can be a social occasion with other like-minded hunters and gathers, aka the girlfriends. Together we are helping the local economy, purchase by purchase… is it too much to ask for good customer service while we’re achieving this?
The difference between online and at-the-store customer exchange will always be the personal touch – the human contact and the customer service experience.
However, according to an American Express review of consumers in 10 countries, it found 33% of Australian consumers “think that companies are paying less attention to customer service in the current economy compared to other countries”.
Of the Australians surveyed 46% said companies did not make any effort to retain their business. Given the competition from online retailers and people’s inclination to save, the results were surprising, said Christine Wakefield, vice president of American Express World Service Australia.
Christine believes that cutting staff in response to economic circumstances contributed to the problem. “Some businesses see service as an investment because service can be as equally as important as the product they are selling. Other businesses just see service as something you can put on the chopping block and cut when times are tough”.
According to Brett Whitford, executive director of Customer Service Institute of Australia, “Training and developing frontline staff to deliver great service should be viewed as an investment in the long term health of a business”. Whitford said high quality customer service showing interest in customers, asking how they are, and generally recognising the importance of their custom is essential.
Virgin Airlines take a fresh approach to recruiting for their customer service staff – they hire people for their positive attitude first and invest in training them once recruited. This could be a good recruitment approach for retailers also. How many fashion outlets hire the wrong people to fit a certain image when all the customer wants is good service?
Australians are overwhelmingly prepared to reward good service! According to the Amex survey, 75% spent more with a company because of a history of good customer service, and 73% would spend more with a company that gave excellent customer service.
Which is why retail businesses have everything to gain by focussing on improvements and excellence in their frontline service delivery!
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