Commentary

3 tips to make sure your CX doesn't take a summer break

Lisa van Kesteren, CEO and Founder of SeeLevel HX, offers retailers three steps to take to ensure that the customer experience remains steadfast for each and every customer.

Photo by iStock.com

August 10, 2018

By Lisa van Kesteren, CEO and founder, SeeLevel HX

Ahh...summer. BBQs, summer road trips, hanging out on the beach with the kids — it's the perfect time to stop, unwind and relax. But if you're a retail professional, lackluster customer experiences while you relax into summer mode can impact your your bottom line far beyond the summer holidays.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You can put a plan in place to keep your CX humming with 100 percent top performance, even while you may be personally taking a holiday. Here are three steps you should take so that you can actually have fun this summer, secure in the knowledge that your CX remains steadfast for each and every customer.

#1: Keep seasonal employees engaged

If you're adjusting staffing levels seasonally, it's critical for you to utilize training and engagement strategies for temporary and part-time employees. With seasonal employees, such as students, it could be that your new hire is entering the workforce for the first time. This makes additional training essential, not only to ensure adherence to your internal policies and procedures, but to protect the brand promise that you have communicated to your customers. Your CX has a foundation built on the expectations of these consumers, expectations that have been set from your marketing efforts and their past experiences with your business. Break these expectations and customer loyalty will evaporate rapidly.

#2: Continually reinforce your core principles

In terms of mindset and attitude, there are certain basic concepts that all employees, especially short-terms hires, should consider to be a dedicated part of your corporate culture. Chick-fil-a provides a good example of the types of precepts that you should have as part of your own culture. The fast food giant calls it their "Core 4."

Elements of Chick-fil-a Core 4 include:

Making eye contact: The hospitality industry has what's known as the "10 and 5" rule. If someone is within 10 feet, they should be greeted with eye contact. If they are within five feet, there should be a pleasant verbal greeting. This rule should apply to every sector, not just hospitality, and it should especially apply to retail.

Smile: Smiling improves mood — both for your employees and for the customers they serve. When your employees smile, they will create a more positive environment that can touch consumers at many different levels.

Speaking enthusiastically: Similar to the notion that smiling actually improves mood, enthusiasm translates into body language, attitude, speech and eye contact that boosts employee confidence and reinforces the enthusiasm itself over time. Customers will tend to remember the experience well after they leave a store.

Maintaining the connection: Keeping a connection with customers is critical to reinforcing your brand and making the entire interaction with it memorable. Train employees to make notes about customers that they can reference when that customer returns. It's that type of personal touch that can really keep consumers coming back for more.

#3: Keep it running smoothly while you're away

So you've trained your team and have dedicated programs to reinforce your culture around core values that protect your customer experience. But then the day comes for you to take that long-awaited summer vacation. How do you "let it all go" while you're away?

The answer is that you can relax without letting anything go. If you maintain a mystery shopper program, that team of independent third-party observers can keep watch over your CX while you're away.

Mystery shoppers can experience your brand promise the way your customers do. They will interact with your full-time and seasonal employees to make sure that the experience is being delivered consistently to ensure that customers are fully engaged and happy with their summer shopping experience.

Better still, mystery shoppers can engage with your brand across every channel you offer, from mobile to in-store to online to call center. Consistent feedback for each channel will help make sure your entire omnichannel experience is staying ahead of competitors that are also investing heavily in similar efforts.

With CX, consistency is key, and mystery shoppers are a dedicated, focused and effective way to keep your brand promise consistently on-track so that your customers leave your business feeling fulfilled. Mystery shoppers provide a system of checks and balances that are very effective, as long as the proper management structure is in place to quickly resolve any potential CX issues; while avoiding the “blame game” that often happens when leadership is absent.

If mystery shoppers are combined with the right structure and process to reinforce your summertime CX (as well as winter, spring, fall, etc.), then you can finally get back to planning that next trip to the water park.