Creating a Retail Customer Experience | Choose To Care.

When we wake up in the morning, we have the choice to hit snooze, or like Mel Robbins says, count 5-4-3-2-1 and enthusiastically hop out of bed.

We choose what to wear, what to drink, what to eat… if we have time to eat at all, and where to shop – which brings me to a recent retail customer experience I had. It got me thinking about how important the choices we make really are.

I recently received a $40 “thank you for being a valued customer” gift card in the mail from a clothing boutique I frequently shop at – with no exclusions! A rarity! I’m sure it was due to the hundreds of dollars I had spent over the holiday season. The expiration date was 45 days out – plenty of time for me to get to the shop or at least onto their website to choose something.

As luck would have it, when I finally grabbed the card to go shopping - it was one day after the expiration date. I decided to take the time to drive down to the store – where the team had recently been so helpful and eager to meet my needs - which is why I chose to shop there. Perhaps, they would be willing to extend the offer. After all, it was just one day!

As I walked in, two team members were talking in the front, on the men’s side. A woman on the women’s side welcomed me in as she was pretending to fold a sweater on the front table. I wandered through the store – with several items piquing my interest that I could hardly wait to try on. Before gathering them, I stopped at the counter and shared my situation and asked if she was able to extend the expiration one day. Her response was that she couldn’t make that decision, but that she would go check with her manager. Clearly the manager was one of the team members I had seen in the front of the store when I arrived. The manager looked up at me, looked down and shook her head, sending the team member back to tell me that; no, there was “nothing they could do”.

It was at that moment, I decided to also choose that there was “nothing THEY could do” for me now or in the near future.

I respect rules, but if we are going to refer to shopping as retail therapy, as it is frequently called in the industry, then it is also important to make sure the guest leaves the store feeling better than when they came in!

For reference, Wikipedia defines retail therapy as:

“Retail therapy is shopping with the primary purpose of improving the buyer's mood or disposition.”

How does one improve the buyer’s mood? By caring. Caring what his/her favorite colors are, their size, what they are looking for, listening and anticipating their needs. In my experience, it was the fact that the manager didn’t take the time to come and speak to me to discuss the choices that were available to me. To show me that she cared… cared as much as she did when I spent the $750 in her store.

Great customer service is not just reflected in great sales. It shows up in repeat visits- when the same guest chooses YOU over all the other options… because you care. Every time.