Be Nice, Customers Notice

All retailers “slip” sometimes on most aspects of delivering their customer service. It is natural and unavoidable. But can these slips be neutralized in the minds of your customers?

I’ve reviewed hundreds of customer surveys with candid comments about store service. These voices of your customers are quite revealing. Extensive research over the years has quantified the basics and minimum requirements of customer service. These requirements are consistent across markets but do vary in their importance in individual trading areas. Some require human interaction, some do not.

As most retailers know, or should know, these minimum customer service requirements include: easy to shop, easy to find merchandise, products in stock, ample employees available to provide assistance and an easy-to-navigate and informative website. Many qualitative analyses reveal an often-overlooked service component: simply being nice to your customers. Consider these direct comments from customers.

• “At Uptown Hardware, they are always so nice.”
• “The employees at Backwoods Building Supply just aren’t very nice to you.”
• “They didn’t have what I needed but were nice enough to tell me where I could get it.”

The problem here is that you can’t ask a job applicant if they are nice and expect an honest answer. It’s like asking if children will be nice or not.

The question is, can being “nice” be taught and executed, just like product knowledge, product location and salesmanship can? Rather than being taught, being nice may just be a learned condition attained through continual exposure to good examples.

If the solution is constantly reinforcing being nice, setting the example starts at the top. Ultimately, it will become a norm in your service arsenal and should be a cornerstone of your brand’s image. It can offset those missteps that are bound to occur and be a strong, competitive weapon in a sometimes not-so-nice retail world.

Till next time.