Greeting each and every customer that walks through the door may seem like an obvious rule of business, however, most busy stores fail to do so on a daily basis. Anyone who has ever worked retail knows just how many customers can slip by without so much as a smile or simple hello when things get busy. Every business fails to greet or promptly respond to their customers at some point. When the store is full, people have to wait. Most of us understand and accept this reality. Right? Unfortunately, people aren’t always so kind patient. While some customers prefer to slide in the door and take a look around without any sort of recognition, many customers will feel ignored and become downright upset if they are not acknowledged in the first thirty seconds of walking through the door. How well you greet your customers can make or break your business right from the start. In the past I have worked as a greeter for a popular local jewelry store here in Indianapolis, and often times the number of waiting customers could far exceed the number of available salespeople. To help address this issue, the store I worked for began hiring greeters as a new full time position, but even that was sometimes not enough to ensure that every customer received immediate attention. Customers still often outnumbered staff during busy weekends, holiday season, and for special events. What could our staff possibly do to make sure every client was satisfied during these busy times? The key is to create a culture of awareness. It is natural for a salesperson to direct 100% of their attention to the client they are assisting. The problem with this sort of tunnel vision, however, is that customers that are waiting to be assisted often interpret a salesperson’s focus on someone else as neglect towards themselves. Depending on the sales environment, many unacknowledged customers assume that they are being neglected due to personal reasons. They begin to ask themselves questions such as: Perhaps the salespeople don’t want to help me because I don’t seem like I have a lot of money to spend? Maybe it’s because of my race, my age, or some part of my appearance that makes me a less desirable customer? If a business allows a customer to think these things they are sunk from the beginning. Moreover, customers that are upset for not receiving prompt attention are those that are most likely to share poor reviews online and tell their friends about their unpleasant experience.
Ensuring that every customer receives a proper welcome requires complete team awareness and commitment. In addition to having a number of dedicated greeters available, every person on the sales floor has to make a conscious effort to avoid the sort of “tunnel vision” mentioned previously. Even when assisting a client, every person on the sales floor started making a conscious effort to say hello, smile, and ask all unattended customers if they had been assisted or could be helped. While most customers would reply that they were fine, just browsing, or had already been taken care of, there were always customers waiting for an employee to recognize their immediate need. Even if the busy salesperson was not free to assist the waiting customer, simply acknowledging their presence in a friendly manner can make the difference between a customer happily waiting or storming out of the store in disgust. Furthermore, letting the customer know that the next available person will assist them or setting an estimated wait time typically puts the client at ease. Although the store may be too busy to address a customer’s immediate concern, making every patron feel important with a warm and personal greeting is a vital part of every store’s success. Customers will soon forget the words you say, but they will always remember how you make them feel. And making your customers feel very good or very bad is what generates Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM). No one goes out of their way to tell someone about their mediocre experience.
While Brandrenew’s PR efforts don’t try to tell you how to run your business, we do recognize the importance of WOMM and how it can be positively and negatively affected by various business operations. For businesses selling directly to consumers, having a system, staff and culture in place to properly greet every customer directly affects your word of mouth marketing. Not only is word of mouth marketing the most effective type marketing communication, it’s free! One of the added values of having Brandrenew as your PR agency is that we understand how to help drive WOMM for your business. Our professional consultants provide solutions that get your customers to generate positive PR: PR that spreads via consumer word of mouth in person and online.
That’s the Brandrenew difference.
Can your business benefit from better PR? Let us buy you a cup of coffee and see what’s possible.
Written by Brian Kenny
(231) 881 2313