Six Lessons from the Retail Sales Floor for Delivering Superior Customer Service

Take a moment to reflect on the last time you visited one of your favorite retailers. Did you encounter a friendly, outgoing salesperson? Did he or she help you find exactly what you were looking for by taking the time to get to know you and really understand your needs? If you answered yes to those questions, then you were on the receiving end of excellent customer service. Notice that I didn't ask if you found a good bargain or if you had the chance to negotiate a more favorable price. Providing good customer service means making an authentic connection; it doesn't mean simply reaching an agreeable price, closing the sale and saying goodbye. As one charged with growing and marketing your business, it's your job to ensure that you and every single person you put on the front lines bring authenticity and enthusiasm to every interaction with a customer or prospect. Whether you have a staff of five or 500, the last thing you want is a customer who feels like they and their hard-earned dollars are under-appreciated. I can’t even count the number of times I've come across a customer service rep who sounds bored and apathetic. This not only makes me want to conclude my frustrating encounter with this person as quickly as possible, but it also leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth about the company as a whole, making me highly disinclined to do business with them again in the future. And if I walk away feeling this way as a result of this rep’s apathy, inevitably there will be hundreds or even thousands of others who share my sentiment. Leave enough customers feeling alienated, and eventually you will have the undoing of even the largest, seemingly most untouchable corporation. Through their actions and their attitudes, your customer service representatives and salespeople can make or break the reputation of your brand and, by extension, the health of your bottom line. From my experience as the operations manager for a large retailer, I know first-hand what it takes to deliver world-class customer service. Here are six best practices from the retail sales floor that you can apply in your organization to ensure that every encounter between your company and your customers and clients gets five stars for satisfaction.

1. Set the tone right from the start.

Rule number one of working the sales floor is to greet your customer as soon as they walk in the door to make them feel acknowledged and to let them know that you are at the ready to serve their needs. Whether you’re meeting with your client in person or by phone or even via web conference, set a positive tone right from the start by warmly welcoming them and breaking the ice. And don’t feel compelled to get straight down to business. Beginning the conversation with a bit of casual, non-work-related talk will establish an emotional connection and let them know that you see them as a person first and customer second.

2. Establish the need.

In the store, the first question out of my mouth after greeting the customer is, "What's the occasion that brings you in?" This gives him the opportunity to tell me a little bit about himself and what he’s looking to accomplish from his visit. The same applies to your initial encounter with a new prospect. As soon as you’ve established a comfortable rapport, it’s time to start asking questions that will help you gain a better understanding of their needs and goals. And, remember, while they may have come to you seeking help with a specific problem, if you’re a savvy conversationalist, you may be able to uncover a broader concern or objective that you can partner with them to solve. That’s why it’s important to make sure you pose insightful questions that will paint the full picture of who this person is, what their experience has been to date and how you can play a role in helping them advance their goals.

3. Listen. No – really listen.

In the retail setting, one of the best things you can hope for as a salesperson is a chatty customer. The more information they volunteer, the easier it is for us to provide helpful recommendations. For example, a woman in her 20s walks through the door and mentions that she’s looking for a cocktail dress, so you offer a few nice selections that fit the bill. But after a few minutes pass and some pleasant conversation ensues, she reveals that the dress is actually for her cousin’s wedding. A mediocre salesperson says, “Oh, that’s nice!” and returns to folding shirts. But for the savvy salesperson who really hears what that customer is saying, the wheels of good service are set in motion. Because, of course, a wedding is never just a wedding. It’s merely the highlight of a full weekend of events that include at minimum a bachelorette party and a rehearsal dinner as well as perhaps a girls’ spa day and a day-after brunch. All of those occasions require a specific type of attire, which opens the door to an array of additional wardrobe needs that you might be able to help her with. And, hey – we get it. Between asking the right questions, keeping the conversation flowing and formulating your recommendations, it’s all too easy not to fully absorb everything your client is saying. But the worst possible mistake we can make as business owners, managers, marketers and salespeople is not really listening to our customers. Every word out of their mouth is a little clue – a piece of the puzzle that comes together to reveal what it is they really want. Don’t be too quick to dismiss what may seem on the surface like irrelevant details. Even if they're telling you about their children, their cat Whiskers or even their favorite Madonna song, listen and retain as much as you can. Bring along an associate, if needed. Make it their job to record everything that’s happening as it’s happening. Assimilating all of these finer points into a cohesive whole is what's going to help you establish a deeper connection with that client that will improve your chances not only of securing the sale at hand but also of cultivating a fruitful long-term, mutually beneficial partnership.

4. Be proactive but not pushy.

In a retail store, any salesperson worth their salt would never just point a customer vaguely in the direction of what they’re looking for and then leave them to their own devices to find it. Rather, they’d walk them over to the appropriate section of the store, help them pull the correct size, advise on proper fit, suggest alternative options or complementary accessories, etc. In the corporate setting, this translates to staying sharp, thinking on your feet and being a problem-solver. If you’ve covered the bases in eliciting good insights from your client – both in terms of their explicit needs and those they may not even be fully aware of themselves – now is the time for you to step up to the plate and swing for the fences. Let your expertise and your passion for what you do shine through as you offer intelligent and thoughtful recommendations, making sure always to frame your presentation directly in terms of how what you’re offering benefits your client. Put yourself on their side of the table, and let them know that you’re here as a partner in their success, not just someone looking to seal the deal. And on that note, every good salesperson knows how to read the room. If your client shows signs of being uncomfortable or overwhelmed, slow down and back up. You never want them to feel as though you are forcing something on them that they don’t want or need. The cliché of the pushy salesperson is a cliché for a reason.

5. Make the sale that makes sense.

Is there anything worse than walking down a mall corridor and being assaulted from every angle by the employees of those stand-alone kiosks who are trying to lure you over to see their wares? If you were interested in their products, you’d make a point to visit them of your own volition, right? Also, what’s with the aggressive heckling? Has that ever really worked? By contrast, when a customer comes into our store, we make recommendations based on what makes sense for their lifestyle and their needs, not what will fulfill our sales quota for the day. Many of them actually thank us for taking the time to show them products that are genuinely a good fit. When you present your client with a service or product that clearly clicks with them, they'll give you as much time as you need to explain the benefits. Better yet, if you can catch them by surprise with an unexpectedly innovative solution to their needs, they’ll be grateful for your insight and excited to move forward. Worst-case scenario? They’ll say no in the moment, but even then, if you’ve done the job well, given time to reflect and reconsider, they might ring you up again in the future. A word of caution, while you want to hear the cash register ring as much and as often as possible (or to see the signature on the dotted line, as it were), selling your products or services to a customer when you know they’re not actually a good fit for their specific needs is like playing Russian roulette. If the product isn’t really the right solution, your customer is going to be unhappy, and they’re going to point the finger at you. They’ll either assume that your product is subpar or, far worse, that your company is dishonest in its claims. That is one sale that will end up costing your company and your brand’s reputation dearly, as they complain vociferously to anyone who will listen.

6. Commit beyond the sale.

I'm not asking that you wine and dine your client every Friday night, unless you actually want to – in which case, I’m not hating. What I am asking, however, is that you dedicate yourself to ensuring their satisfaction. A smart salesperson recognizes that there’s no such thing as “closing.” After all, when a customer makes the choice to do business with you, you’re not closing anything. You’re only beginning the process of cultivating a relationship with someone whom you hope will be a lifelong client. For example, in my line of business I frequently work with clients who spend upwards of $1,000 or more with the company, and they sign contracts that span six months or longer. When someone is spending that kind of money and time with me, I want to make sure they feel comfortable and informed at every step along the way until our obligation has been fulfilled to their greatest satisfaction. Think of every interaction you have as an opportunity to cement your customer’s continued loyalty. Pay attention, nurture the relationship and earn the right to continue serving that customer’s needs. Don’t simply meet their expectations; exceed them at every turn.

Are you sold yet?

So as you can see, whether it’s on the retail sales floor or in a corporate boardroom, the basic principles of superior customer service are universal. By translating these six best practices to the specific products or services that your company offers, you’ll inevitably reap the benefits of customer relationships that are defined by authenticity, enthusiasm and a deep level of engagement. After all, traditional word-of-mouth isn't dead; today’s savvy customers just demand that you work a lot harder to earn it.

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Let’s Talk Turkey: The Five Most Important Things Visitors Want from Your Website

What do your visitors want from your website?

The answer to this question depends on a number of factors, including the nature of your business, the type of person who typically visits your site and what they hope to accomplish while they’re there. However, there are certain basic needs and expectations that transcend these specific circumstances and are universal to all visitors.

Over the past few months, I’ve conducted an informal survey of clients, coworkers, friends, family and others that I’ve encountered, asking them this one simple question:

“What do you want when you visit a website?”

While there were many different responses to this question, there were five that I heard again and again. Each person I spoke with mentioned at least one of these five, and many cited more than one.

Let’s take a look at these five critical elements that visitors want from your website:

1. Ease of use

Without a doubt, the most common answer I heard was that people want websites to be easy to use, and this makes perfect sense. After all, it’s 2014. We’re all well versed in using the Web to conduct the business of our day-to-day lives. There’s no reason your website should require a learning curve just to get from point A to point B. Yet, far too many sites are guilty of presenting visitors with an experience that’s confusing, frustrating and completely unsatisfying.

The definitive guidebook of usability, Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, asserts that web applications must explain themselves. When a visitor looks at a web page, the next step should be obvious and intuitive. With the world of options available at their fingertips, visitors have next to no patience when it comes to dealing with sites where there are any sort of obstacles standing in their way. If they can’t figure out where to go and what to do next in as little as three seconds, it could well be a deal breaker that causes them to abandon your site – and by proxy your business – altogether.

Navigation menus that are difficult to use, important content that is buried deep in your site and nearly impossible to find or a design schema that does not provide visitors good visual cues and clear calls-to-action to direct their experience are all pitfalls that must be avoided if you want to ensure that your site meets the acceptable threshold for ease-of-use.

2. Good information architecture

Just as nearly everyone I talked with said they want a site that’s easy to use, many also said that they want information to be easy to find. The key to achieving this is by creating a concise, logical navigation structure. If your site encompasses a large repository of information and content, it’s a good idea to include a search tool that lets your visitors to use keywords to drill down to the information they’re seeking right away rather than hunting and clicking through the site page by page.

There is a long-held myth of website design that claims all content on a site must be able to be reached in no more than two clicks. While that might sound great in theory, in reality, the task of developing an effective navigational structure is rarely that straightforward.

For example, if you had a website with a hundred pages of content, you could theoretically have direct links to each one of those 100 pages right on your home page in order to allow visitors to access all of your content in only one click. Awesome, right? No – not awesome at all. While that massive menu of links might offer one-click access to your site’s entire content catalog, it will also be a confusing, gargantuan mess that provides visitors with little in the way of clear direction.

Remember, visitors to your site are making instinctive decisions in as little as three seconds. They do not want to sift through a laundry list of dozens of links in order to find the one that’s relevant to them. Rather, they want to make easy, logical choices that get them to where they want to go without a lot of guesswork and back-button clicking.

3. Fast load time

Another popular answer I heard in the course of my survey was fast load time. A webpage that takes too long to fully load is major source of frustration for visitors. After all, if they want to make a decision in as little as three seconds, and your site takes seven seconds to load, chances are good that they’re going to choose to navigate away from your site before they ever even see it. Seven seconds may not seem like a long time, but in the instant-gratification-driven world of the Internet, it’s practically an eternity.

If your site is slow to load for visitors who have a fast Internet connection, you’re really going to be in trouble with users who don’t have the benefit of a lightning-speed connection, including those on mobile devices who might be in a location where network coverage is slow or spotty.

Ensuring that your site loads quickly is crucial to providing an optimal experience for all visitors, regardless of their device or quality of connection. After all, no one has ever complained that a site loaded too fast for them!

4. No ads

Advertising is a necessary evil for many websites. If your business model depends at least in part on revenue generated by ads on your site, then removing those ads simply because visitors don’t care for them is probably not a realistic option. Still, the fact that ads offer little more than an annoyance to most visitors is something that you should be aware of.

When considering ads for your website, you must take into account not only the needs of your business but also the needs of your customers. Ads that make your site more difficult to use should be avoided at all cost, especially intrusive ads that take over the screen or obstruct areas of your content with over-the-top, in-your-face animation or video. These “take-over” ads are impossible for website visitors to ignore; they have to interact with them on some level, even if it’s just to hit the “close” icon, in order to achieve their purpose in coming to your site. Of course, the inability to disregard these ads is why advertisers love this format, but if you use them on your site, you’re running the risk that your customers and prospects will quickly tire of the hassle of dealing with them and seek out a competitor who will offer them a more user-friendly browsing experience.

Ads may be a fact of life for your website, but the types of ads you allow is well within your control. Listen to your customers, and make sure you choose advertising display options that do not compromise the overall quality of their user experience.

5. No bugs

One of the worst experiences a user can have online is when they have invested time in a site, gone through the necessary steps to complete a transaction – whether it’s to make a purchase, sign up for a membership, complete a request form, etc. – only to have the site crash and burn during the final steps of that transaction. This is a soul-crushing experience and one of the best ways to drive customers away for good!

Make sure that your website is working as expected at all times. If you’ve recently incorporated new features into your site, thoroughly test not only those new features but also all other existing subsystems within the site to ensure that no problems have been introduced along with the new code that has been added to the site.

Even if you’ve not recently added any new features or functionality, you should schedule routine testing to make sure the site is operating as expected and does not crash just as your visitors are about to cross the finish line and complete a successful transaction.

What I didn’t hear

The five elements covered in this article are ones that I heard again and again during my experiment. Of course, I heard many other answers as well, including “works well on my phone,” “good prices,” “information in Spanish” and “easy-to-find contact information.”

One of the most interesting discoveries to come out of my survey process was the answers that I didn’t hear. Not one person said that they wanted a site that “looked good” or had a “nice design.”

Nor did I hear any comments that people wanted features like “live chat” or “contact forms.” Does this mean that visitors do not want an attractively designed site or access to helpful features? Of course not – it means that those things should already be a part of a good site by default.

Great design is unobtrusive; it provides elegant yet simple visual cues that make the site easy to use and make information easy to find – two of the most commonly mentioned things that people want from a site. So, while the participants in my informal survey may not have cited beautiful design explicitly, they were, in fact, asking for it by proxy.

Great design and helpful features are not only important; they are expected.

In summary

It should come as no surprise that visitors want a site that is easy to use, loads quickly and works seamlessly. All of these should be par for the course for any site, which makes it all the more surprising to see so many sites that fail in even these most basic areas.

When evaluating the effectiveness of your site, start with these fundamentals. If your site fails the test in any one of these areas, then no amount of flashy features or advanced technology can compensate for the poor experience you’ve provided for your users. First and foremost, master the basics that visitors demand and then work up from there!

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