I spent nine years running a small retail music store. An ongoing concern was the physical layout of the space. I watched closely how customers moved through the store, what caught their attention, how they handled merchandise and how their behavior indicated comfort or discomfort.
We arranged and re-arranged accordingly to maximize sales opportunities, extend the length of the customer's visit and to facilitate and simplify the selection and purchasing processes. We moved tables and shelves, added rugs and seating, widened corridors, provided coffee and snacks, created a transaction area with “buyer's chair,” redesigned and repositioned price tags, provided surfaces for people to put their stuff down, etc. etc.
We gave the same kind of close attention to how people reacted to what the staff said and how and when they said it, and trained ourselves and our staff to deliver the best possible sales support and customer service. We applied similar methods to our marketing efforts and our website. We were rewarded with increased sales and more satisfied customers – because we took the time and made the effort to understand what they wanted and needed, not just through their words but through their actions, and we altered our words and actions to meet them.
All this makes me a picky consumer today. Of course, retail has changed a lot, and those changes have accelerated in the pandemic.
With online shopping having become so dominant, salespeople in a bricks-and-mortar location, should you venture in, will often send you back to your browser which may well be a better option for selection as well as service. A grocery store may have no in-person checkout at all. Interactions with management may end up happening on social media, before the eyes of the world, when you have a comment, question or complaint.
Trust is a fragile thing in these situations of limited human contact. A recent shipment of dried fruit arrived spoiled. I threw it in the compost and notified the merchant, who informed me that I must first return the smelly stuff to them before they would consider any refund or credit. Interesting business model.
Sometimes you have to try something on. Shopping for gym wear at a local fitness wear store a few years ago, I found that the range of merchandise was so limited that there wasn't a single top in my size. For someone who has been working out at the gym for years and is reasonably fit, as I am, this kind of experience is marginalizing, even humiliating. I'm a gym-goer and yet my shape and size put me outside a fitness store's perceived (or preferred) demographic. I shared these thoughts with the apologetic salesperson before I left the store.
Also infuriating, illogical and hypocritical is something that occurs all too often at the gym itself: No dedicated place for a person to stretch. Maintaining flexibility is an important part of a well-rounded fitness program, right? We all know that, right?
But when it comes down to manifesting that by setting aside actual, dedicated space on the gym floor, something intrudes. I think it is the need of an equipment company to sell or lease equipment overcoming the gym operator's sense of proportion. And once that equipment is there, they keep the sense of proportion at bay to justify the expenditure. The result: no place to stretch. Try, as I have, bringing this up at your gym if your experience is similar. Persist in pointing it out and you eventually reach the “nobody else is complaining” stage. Translation: the equipment is more important than the customer and if necessary they'll sacrifice your business to the cause. In other words: the gym's unwritten, true mission is to house equipment, not to provide users with the environment for a balanced fitness program.
It's important in any business to take time for a reality check. Ask yourself honestly what business you are in, what your mission is and who your customers are. Then find out if your perception matches that of your staff, and that of your customers. And – MIND THE GAP!
Recommended reading: Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing, by Harry Beckwith.
