Retail Customer Service Tips

You should never underestimate the power of good customer service. What people think about you can make or break your business. Customers consider customer service the most important part of their shopping experience, and so should you. Concentrating on servicing your customers will help you to make your business better, improve the image of your store, and lead to more sales and more customers. Use these tips to make sure that you and your staff are on the right path to providing excellent customer service.

1) Learn who your regular customers are and identify them. Simply learning your customers’ names can go a long way. A personal greeting is remembered and makes the customer feel valued and special. Let your employees know that you want them to try to do this. If it’s a customer’s first time purchasing something, take a look at their check or card and thank them using their name. This will help you remember who they are if they come in again. If someone signs up for your e-mail list to receive your newsletter or special offers, then include a personal thank you in the first e-mail you send. Say something specific, like “I hope you’re enjoying your new shirt and pants!” or “Have fun at your daughter’s wedding!” so that they know you remembered them.

2) Keep in touch with your customers whenever possible. An e-mail list is a great way to keep your customers informed of sales and promotions. It’s a non-invasive way to keep in touch. Make sure that customers can easily unsubscribe without feeling embarrassed or they might be too embarrassed to come back to your store. An automatic unsubscribe is least threatening. Postcards, occasional mailings, and personal thank you notes put a special touch on your customer’s shopping experience.

3) Hire upbeat employees that are happy to work for you. The way that they treat your customers is the most important thing that you’re looking for. If someone hates being there and is simply putting on a show to get their job done, it will be obvious to your customers. If you’re having trouble finding people that go the extra mile with your customers, consider pay raises, incentives, bonuses, and extra training to get them on board. Your employees will only see customer service as importantly as you do. Model the behavior that you want to see and focus on team building and individual rewards to motivate your staff.

4) Make the shopping experience easy all around for your customers. Keeping your store displays nice and neat is the first step in creating a good customer experience. If your racks are messy or crowded, customers will be turned off and simply not want to shop there. An organized store says that you care and makes it easy for customers to navigate your merchandise. If your floor space is limited, consider installing slatwall panels to take advantage of some vertical space in your stores. Slatwall is perfect for displaying all sorts of merchandise. It’s easy to rearrange and easy to keep looking nice and neat.

Use all of these tips and come up with some of your own to make the customer service that your store provides unique.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail displays, including mannequins, dress mannequin forms, female mannequins, slatwall and slatwall panels. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.

How to Increase Retail Sales

The economy is in a slump and retail businesses are the first to suffer. People are afraid to spend their money. But, they will need to buy school clothes and work clothes, so use these tips to ensure that you snag some of these precious sales dollars.

Customer service is your number one concern. If someone has a bad experience in your store, the news will spread. Train your sales team on how to provide good customer service. They should avoid commonly overused phrases and start to see them as sales or branding opportunities. Additionally, negative phrases should have a positive spin. For example, instead of saying, “Hold on for a minute while I look for that” a prepared customer service person would say, “We do keep that in stock, I will be right back with it for you.” There is only a slight difference in what was said, but think about the customer’s impression. In the first statement, the customer is asked to “wait” while the employee “looks”. If it were me, I would think that it could take forever and I would probably leave once the sales person was out of sight.

Merchandise your store in a way that will lure in the right customers. You don’t necessarily want everyone and their dog to come inside. You mainly want the people that may actually spend money to enter. Arrange your displays to target the demographic that you want to enter. If you want higher paying customers, don’t put fluorescent lights and giant sale signs at the door. If you want to clear out old merchandise for cheap, bring your garment racks out onto the sidewalk. People will respond to the mood that you set.

Reduce theft to protect your investment. Lighting, mirrors, strategically placed sales representatives and theft deterrent signs can be very inexpensive and save you loads of money due to losses. Loss prevention should become even more of a priority when the economy is down and people are more willing to take a risk shoplifting.

You may have heard that when sales are down you should be spending more on advertising. This is true, but how much and in what area should it be being spent? If you only have a small advertising budget, you might use it to get information about your competition. Doing some research yourself or paying for a competitive analysis can help you to define your edge and publicize it. You may be able to identify a target market that has gone untapped, problems with your competitions customer service or holes in what the competition offers and what their customers are looking for.

Finally, realize that you can use what you’ve got without spending a dime. If there aren’t many customers in the store, use that time to train employees on high level customer service. Rearrange your store displays and work on new and exciting merchandising. Your store can rotate new inventory towards the front of the store every day if necessary until you figure out what is drawing customers in. Utilize mannequins in your front window to keep the scene changing. Not only will you spark interest, but you will help customers see what all you have to offer.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the Vice President of S & L Store Fixtures, a leading online resource for retail display cases including mannequins, mannequin forms, gridwall and slatwall store fixtures. For more information, please visit http://www.slstoredisplays.com.