News

In the holiday spirit

Customer experience wasn't the strongest branch on the tree in 2007. Here are a few tips to help you improve this time around.

June 19, 2008

This article originally published in Retail Customer Experience magazine, Jul-Aug 2008. Click here to download a free PDF version.

Finding positive customer experiences at holiday time is a bit like looking for parking spaces at the mall on December 23. The harder you look, the rarer they seem.

Last year, Illona Cowen couldn't find a salesperson at Carson Pirie Scott in the Greater Chicago area. She blamed the cashier stations parked in inconvenient locations that force salespeople to stand guard over their drawers as opposed to helping customers. "Sears is even worse," Cowen said. "Their register help really doesn't know the store layout at all and was constantly giving me wrong directions."

Martin Focazio roamed retailers in Flemington, N.J., searching for a gift for his wife. In one store, the clerk offered to order an item for him.

"The whole point of me dragging my ass to a store is to see, touch and buy merchandise in an environment that is richer than a screen, has personalized service and an opportunity to be waited on — not to watch some clerk type slower than me into the same Web site I could use at home," he said.

Cowen and Focazio weren't the only ones to find their 2007 holiday shopping experiences lacking due to poor service. According to the Wharton School's 2007 Retail customer Dissatisfaction Study released in February 2008, Americans deem front-line sales staff the single biggest detriment to their shopping experiences. Thirty-three percent of shoppers couldn't find a salesperson; one in four said store personnel ignored them, not offering so much as a smile, greeting or eye contact.

It's no surprise that retail performed poorly in the bright lights of December, consultants say. Sarah Rottenberg, a directing associate at San Mateo, Calif.-based Jump Associates, said this was because sellers focused so much on price in a tough economy that they forgot to make the experience fun. Even the perennial powerhouse Target dropped the ball in that respect, she said.

And there's something to be said for expectations, too. After all, the Apple Store design that was so edgy in 2002 was much less of a draw by 2007. Peter Mortensen, a communication lead for Jump Associates, said this showed that even innovative retailers who fail to push the experience envelope will find themselves scorned at the holidays.

"We need to think how these things can work in concert to support each other, rather than pushing one element of the experience," said Jump's Rottenberg.

Lights, camera, action!

That spirit of camaraderie is exactly what goes through Tonya Hart's mind when someone walks into her Two Fish Art Glass store in Forest park, Ill. As a signature greeting, all staff members in the store stop what they are doing to shout out a simultaneous "Hello!" After the shopper has had a few minutes to get acclimated, a salesperson approaches to start a friendly conversation and then walk the person through item choices based on the consumer's color and décor parameters. While the salesperson rings up the purchase, a second employee boxes the lamp and carries it to the car.

"It's baptism by fire at Christmas," she said of her seasonal help. Typically, Hart assigns the newbies to help stock the store — the better to learn how the items are packaged in the first place — then promotes them to the position of cash register bagger. "You have to work your way up to cashier and customer interaction," she said.

That strategy wins approval from Gary Edwards, executive vice president of client service for Toronto-based consultancy Empathica. He insists basic customer contact should consist of stopping a task to focus on the customer, smiling, making eye contact and then walking the shopper over to a particular store section that answers her needs. "Not necessarily what's on sale today, but something that matches their request," he said.

"All of these are small but important moments that allow the retailer to win even though faced with the Christmas rush, even in the face of inventory that may be starved or shelves that may be overly crammed so that things are hard to find."

And if that means relegating less-friendly workers to stock jobs and maintenance duties in the back of the house, so be it.

Clarice Holden, owner of Island Breeze, a clothing store in Sunset Beach, N.C., wants every customer to receive the full "Island Breeze experience." To create that experience, she fires up the aromatherapy every morning, makes sure island music plays through the speakers and expects her staff to strike up a friendly rapport with customers. But after 23 years in business, she also knows to invest in product training: Knowledgeable staff is an integral part of the experience she cultivates. This summer, Holden will take seven clerks to a jewelry factory in Rhode Island to learn firsthand how to sell the benefits of the accessory items for sale in her shop. "I have to go the extra mile to get people excited," she said.

It was thorough product knowledge that went a long way in impressing Durjoy Bhattacharjya of White Plains, N.Y., when he made an appointment with a personal shopper at the Long Island Apple Store for his in-laws in December. The staffer answered their questions patiently. "They were astounded at the personalized, no-pressure service — so much so that my father-in-law bought a Mac there a month later," Bhattacharjya said. In the end, that attention to customer service trumped the experts' assessment of Apple's "been there, done that" atmosphere.

Behind the scenes

Crafting good customer experiences with knowledgeable staff is one thing, but what about doing it with holiday help? For successful experiences, retailers must hire trainable seasonal employees. Shop Talk's Johnson recommends that her clients ask job applicants in the interview to describe their idea of good customer experience. "Particularly among temporary help, their vision is just to get it in the bag and get them out the door quickly so the line doesn't back up," she said. Wrong answer.

Store owners who want to create an atmosphere that delivers "Wow!" moments should pair the November hires with experienced staffers who can mentor them, Johnson suggested. Edwards' advice is a little tougher to follow: He advocates putting managers and owners front and center with the public during the rush times, which means people in these higher-on-the-foodchain positions will find themselves working unpopular shifts such as weekends during the holidays. "But they have to be role models and coaches," he said of the cast.

Jump's Mortensen puts a lot of faith in the retail "costume," not only as a way to project the store's image, but to put "cast" members in the correct mindset. "When you create the right vibe, whether or not the players are on their A-game at that point, it makes it easier for them to get to that level," he said. "One of the interesting elements of architectural infrastructure, messages and music is that they can have a similar impact on the store's employees as they do on the customers. They're all people in the story whom you are trying to motivate."

That doesn't mean, however, that owners should change dress codes or rearrange traffic flow patterns in December to force a fake holiday cheer. Instead, retailers should tweak only their iconic signature elements — think Starbucks switching out its standard cups for red holiday ones — to draw attention to what's new.

"I'm inclined to say the American public is happy with just the basics," Mortensen said. "People expect chaos during the holidays. I honestly think there are times that just providing service is the most valuable thing you can do, having maintained inventory and people who are really knowledgeable and [can] direct you to the right place."

Focazio wouldn't argue. He eventually purchased his spouse's Christmas gift from Flemington Department Store, an independent retailer he describes as "dumpy looking." "But you know what? The shoe department had service like when I was a kid," he said. "There was no trendy thumping music, no slick displays, just well-organized aisles with neatly stacked merchandise. And best of all, if something you wanted wasn't on display, the staff would actually go in the back and, shockingly, come back with the item you wanted."

The backdrop

"Retailers obviously want consumers to buy early in the season at higher prices and consumers have to decide whether to wait to buy closer to the date of Christmas, or after Christmas, to obtain reduced prices," said Eugene Fram, the J. Warren McClure Research Professor of Marketing at the Rochester Institute of Technology's E. Philip Saunders college of Business. So how can retailers win the cat-and-mouse challenge that has been going on for decades?

If handled delicately, retailers can begin suggesting the advent of the holidays in September by adding decorative elements such as nuts or berries to an otherwise "normal" window display. "Retailers need to develop more subtle and creative promotions and displays to remind consumers that the Christmas buying season is coming in a 'short' three or four months. Otherwise fatigue and possibly resentment will likely develop again in 2008," said Fram.

Count on the advent of digital signage and videos at the shelf to go a long way in helping retailers achieve that effect cost effectively.

Turning shopping into such an adventurous treasure hunt certainly spices up the consumer's attitude early in the season. Kendall is a fan of subtle holiday displays, meaning they feature Christmas clues without beating the customer over the head with red, green and tinsel.

Julie Sturgeon is a freelance writer and contributor to Retail Customer Experience magazine.