Retail Franchising, Increasing Your Chances of Success (Pt III)

Date AddedNovember 29, 2009 03:13:19 PM

Author

Continued from: Retail Franchising, Increasing Your Chances of Success (Pt II)

I want to encourage you with a personal example. Some years ago I decided to buy a pair of shoes for my wife as a Christmas present. I had a USA trip coming up in December and I knew exactly where she had bought a particular brand of shoes on a previous trip. I had heard her say a number of times that she wished she had also bought the same style in black. I sneaked into her cupboard and wrote down the brand, style and size on a card.

After my meetings and on the way to the Los Angeles airport, I stopped at a major shopping centre and located the store. The moment I stepped off the marble mall onto the carpet of the store, a sales associate (that's what they are called by this store) welcomed me with a smile and said, "Hi, I'm Celia. How can I be of help to you today?" I showed her my card and she replied, "I'm fairly sure we do have those shoes, sir. Please take a seat; I am serving a customer but I will be with you in just a moment."

True to her word, she was back to me within minutes with three boxes. She opened the top box and showed me the shoes; I checked the details and offered my credit card. "Thank you very much," I said. "If you could fix that up, that would be great!"

Glancing at my credit card while taking the lid off the second box Celia said, "Mr Jenkin, Christmas is coming up; if your wife loves this style you really should buy her another colour". "No thanks", I replied. "I am on my way to the airport and I only have carry-on luggage. And I won't be back in LA until March; by then I will have lost the docket". "Oh, don't worry about that", Celia said, "You won't need to bring the docket back. We know every pair of shoes we sell!"

Well, that got my attention. How could they possibly know every pair of shoes they sell? What piece of radical technology had they developed that tracked the shoes wherever they walked?

Fully intending to carefully observe the transaction process, I replied, "Okay then, I'll take both". Celia then did an amazingly simple thing. On both pairs, on the sole just in front of the heel she wrote the code for the store and the date. As she processed the sale, she asked if she should discard the boxes and put both pairs in a compact carry-bag.

In less than ten minutes Celia had sold me more than I intended to buy, she had found a carry-on solution to my problem, and had demonstrated that her company had overcome a dilemma for all their customers. When you select a member of staff, think of Celia; firstly, assess personality. Then train; then create a culture that finds solutions to your customers' problems.

Retail Franchising, Increasing Your Chances of Success (Pt IV)