Retail (needs some customer service) Therapy

By: Nathalie Schooling

Given all the headlines about recessions and challenging economic times, you would think that retailers would be falling over themselves to make their customers happy and keep them coming back by offering them the very best in service and shopping experiences. But, for the most part, it seems you would be wrong.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it really feels as if the commitment by retail stores to customer service has actually declined along with their profitability prospects over the past year or two.  A high school economics student would be able to tell you that the opposite should really be true.

More and more shops seem to be empty. Not just of customers, but even of tenants. There’s a growing number of shopfronts that, instead of displaying this summer’s hottest fashions are displaying last month’s headlines thanks to being ‘newspapered’ shut. It’s cause for great concern. Not just for us shopaholics, but for anyone who stands to be negatively impacted by a declining economy – and that means everyone.

And yet, shop owners, managers and staff seem unperturbed. There are few stores where you’ll enjoy a warm and friendly greeting, and fewer where you’ll be on the receiving end of a helpful ‘how can I be of assistance?’ My personal suspicions about the alarming lack of customer service were recently confirmed when I visited an upmarket Constantia clothing boutique. The shop assistant was on the phone and within a few seconds, her conversation confirmed that it was not a customer on the other end of the line. And yet, she ignored me and continued chatting to her friend.

So I helped myself. And after trying on a few items, and selecting two I liked, I finally found myself standing at the counter where Miss Unhelpful was still on her clearly very important call. After informing her friend that she had “better go now because I have someone standing in front of me," she hardly looked my way, rang up the items and apparently forgot how to say “thank you”, “come again”, or, even, “goodbye”.

And anecdotal evidence from friends and family confirm that this apathetic attitude seems to be everywhere – from niche boutiques to large chain stores. There are few, if any, stores where customers are still made to feel welcome and valued. Service is virtually non-existent and there is simply no desire to create good customer experiences.

All of which seems hugely counter-intuitive to me. If people have less money to spend, surely retailers must realize the importance of making them want to spend as much of it as possible in their stores? Or do South African shop owners still suffer from the misguided idea that winning share of wallet is exclusively about price competitiveness? If that’s the case, I’m not surprised at the number of empty shops.

For those retailers who are on the ball, of course, this situation offers a massive opportunity. Simply by making sure that their staff are serious about service, and their customers enjoy great shopping experience in their store, these businesses will almost certainly set themselves apart from their competition – and end up with a nice fat bottom line for their efforts. But first they may need to administer a few swift kicks to a couple of other “bottom lines”. I’ll be happy to help.