Finding a Balance Between Speed and Service

As an independent retailer, customer service isn’t just important; it’s a matter of life and death for your business. The problem is that it takes time to provide a high level of service and getting a lot of customers through the checkout line is also a matter of life and death for your business… So how do you balance the two?

The answer is to create a system for everything you can, that way you’ll have time to personalize everything else.

You might be thinking, “systems are only for big business” and they’re the exact reason you feel like a number rather than a person when you try to get service at a big box shop.  It’s true that systems can be a drag, but they can also provide a positive experience as well. Here are a few examples.

Create consistently good service:

As the owner you provide exquisite service; greet customers with a warm hello when they come in, possibly even greet  them by name, and you answer all their questions quickly and accurately because you know your product and store inside out. Do your employees provide the same service? Do they even know how to provide that level of service?   A very simple system that could be put in place is this:

1. When a customer walks in, the employee closest always says “welcome is there anything I can help you with?.  If the employee recognizes the customer they say, “Hello Joe Customer, welcome back what can I do for you today”?  Your employees may not have ever considered greeting a customer by name but it makes for a much better experience then a generic greeting.
2. If you’re working with a customer and don’t know them, start by introducing yourself and if they offer up their name, be sure to use it for the rest of the interaction so you’re more inclined to remember them when they return.

It’s a simple system but if implemented, your store will quickly earn a reputation of being one of the friendliest places around.

Empower employees to provide good service:

Have you ever been in the checkout line behind someone who had a question or needed to make a transaction that required a manager’s approval? I have and it isn’t pretty. Recently I was behind a person in the checkout line who was making a return in which there was no system in place for the employee to use to determine if they could complete the return or not. The policy was that the manager could use their “discretion”. While there was only one person in line behind when I started, there were ten by the time the return was processed. This lack of a system literally inconvenienced every customer in the store. Manager’s discretion whether subconscious or not is usually based on a system; if it’s $x.xx, then just return it no questions asked, if it’s switching it for the exact same product, then go ahead etc. Write these down and give them to your employees so they can make decisions that you’ll be happy with and that don’t ruin the experience for the customer.

Eliminate bottle necks in extra services:

Do you offer your customers extra services such as free gift wrapping? This a great opportunity to provide a better experience for your customers, it could also be an opportunity to be a pain point for your customers if the wrapping is done poorly or if they have to wait a long time for their gift to be wrapped.  You should ask yourself, how long does it take to wrap a gift? Would it take less time if I reorganized my wrapping station? Obviously a meticulously hand tied bow looks amazing but how long does the customer have to wait for it? Is there a product in between that and a standard peel-n-stick bow, such as a pull bow, that would save time and still look great? Asking these questions and more will let you speed up your service and provide a better end product at the same time.

Excellent customer service is the new norm. In order to stand out from the pack you have to go above and beyond, by implementing a few simple systems into your business you can not only kick your service up a notch, without taking up more of your precious time, but you can make sure your customers get the same service every time.

Contributed by Sally Mustaca, the Marketing Manager for Premier Packaging. Premier Packaging specializes in custom hot stamping gift or retail packaging. They have a wide selection of gift bags, boxes and accessories at low prices as well as an industry wide reputation for supporting independent retailers.

Photo Credit: Premier Packaging