The most important visitor on our store premises is....

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

These days, a customer can walkin to a large departmental store and be stopped only at the security gate  and there after go in and browse through the entire store for hours on end and no one else will even ask you how they can possibly help you !

The designation of the staff is typically " CCA" Customer Care Associate, but they hardly seem to care for the Customer ! It is not that they are purposefully avoiding you and doing something else instead.

A typical transaction and conversation goes like this...

A customer walks in to a branded area with rows of pants of a famous brand, and keeps looking, checking , feeling...

The CCA asks him " How may I help you ? "
Customer : I am just looking..
CCA .. Typically leaves the customer and goes back to what ever he is doing..

Customer keeps looking around, does not find what he wants, then he looks for the CCA who is now not available, then the customer walks off

Reason :-

It is not that the CCA does not want to sell. If any thing, he is dependent on the salary and a large percentage of the income is incentives driven and he wants to make the sale..

But the kind of training that has been provided is never adequate. Either the CCA has been around for hardly a few months, does not know English or is very shy of using the few words that he knows and has hardly been trained either by the Multi Brand store or the Brand itself, while the customer is speaking in English ( works in a software or BPO) . He feels in adequate if the customer asks any questions and cannot answer them back ! Better to " hide" behind some work of stacking and re stacking the racks .

Solution :-

Considering that the Brand spends so much on marketing to get the customers, if they spent some of the effort on training the CCA, then she would have asked a few more questions to the customer and answered his queries and made the sale !

Hello ..Brand and Sales Managers ! Are you listening to your customers ?

Why cannot you train your CCAs to give us, the Customers, a better service ?

Tell us ...

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Why are National Brands lagging in the online world ?

Positive. ....

The customers are changing, and many customers do a lot of "window shopping, web browsing" even for going out for a casual dinner in their T shirts and half pants  and chappals ! They read reviews, visit websites, get feedback from their friends both online and off line.

Positive..

At the other end, are Brands  working to meet the customer in the physical world with newer and bigger stores in new markets, new towns and in new malls! But that has not been enough. They are investing more and more in inventory, bigger and bigger marketing budgets and staff who hardly understand this new age educated customer...

Negative.....

Just check how many brands have their own "websites, mobile websites, official twitter and face book accounts" ? to reach the customers at the time of "Evaluation" . A cursory corporate website is about all that they seem to have , and that was last updated when it was launched !

Why are they lagging behind ?....
Are brands getting stuck in the old physical  world at the cost of missing out on the new age customers? Sure, the business might not be as big yet, in the online world and hence does not attract the management attention. The truth is very few "National Brands" especially Indian ,have understood the new world of mobile and web apps, social media and the world of consumer activism on the net ! 

The senior management is still cut off. Just ask how many have seen the Gangnam Video with a 1.45 billion views and you will know . Do they tweet, to they have a personal face book account, does the Brand have a popular one ?
The youngsters in the company who understand the new media, have little say in such matters to get the "VC type risk funding " that is required for large scale operations to take the risk...




Reality check...
Make a list of the top E Commerce sites and all of them are start ups by youngsters with out any link to the "established" brands. 

Wake up call ....

If Brands have to be connected with "connected" customer, then they have to be not only on the Linking Road or South Extensions of the Country but also on Web, Mobile and through FB, Twitter, Pinterest as well.

Brands, are you listening ? 

Share your views 

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Mobile Apps for Training

If any business is not building a mobile application, they are not doing the right thing. People are addicted to their mobile phones. Mobile apps are going to  be a big thing and no company can ignore that. 

Eric Schmidt, Chairman, Google, recently in India

Companies, big and small are forever promoting their business through newspapers, TV ads and everything else in between. With competition doing more or less the same, the companies are adding more money to their marketing budgets, more money to their inventories .

Yet, Let us come straight to the point. Customer Service is uniformly a big challenge to deliver across the country, whether it is a big hotel or a small Coffee Shop. Like a Optical Store owner told me today, the customer knows more about the product today than I can know. He not only browses the net frequently, he also compares brands, services before making a decision...

Old School of Business 
Why is customer service, such a challenge ? This is primarily because, the fundamental belief of management, is why train a person, if he is going to leave for a salary hike. At least the inventory is mine, and hopefully all the money that is spent on marketing will result in business some day.

But ask any retailer, the walk in to conversion ratios are any where between 20 to 50 % . What does it mean.. ?

A typical Consumer Durable retailer would have spent about Rs. 300 to get a customer into the store. A e-commerce retailer today spends about Rs. 800 to get a customer to click on their website. Yet, only 30 people who come to the store make a purchase at all..

If only, companies made the customer service better, chances are the customer will purchase the product for which he came, or at least a nearest alternative. Gone are the days, when customers just went window shopping for the sake of spending and seeing things. Today they have the money to buy !

Understanding the Salesman Psyche !

Today, a mobile phone is an addiction and a entertainment center combined for him. Often, an entire month's salary of Rs. 15,000 is spent on the latest mobile phone... Yet, this is a underutilised device in the hands of both the salesman and the company in improving his retailing skills and improving his lifestyle. Don't believe us, just Google retail training under Google play or the internet and you will be surprised to find hardly any content that is suitable for the Indian market.

Opportunity for you !

To preciously address this vast and under served market, we are building India's first mobile application based retail staff training module for various industries, on a pay per use model. Some thing like a prepaid currency. If the retailer  finds the content useful, he will continue to buy new currency, if not, he will just stop.

We are looking for content developers, mobile app feature plug ins etc to  build this nascent industry.

If there are veteran retailers who would like to share their immense knowledge developed over a life time of hard work, this is the place to share them and earn while doing it all from the comfort of your homes! or offices.

We are also looking for translators of content into multiple languages, both text and in future in audio as well.

Looking forward to hearing from you all about your views on customer service, and your own interest in contributing to this evolution in the mobile app ..

Thanks

Shivaram
Founder 
Retailgurukul.com

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Converting a walk-in to a sale through a proper welcome and query

Scenario:- A large department store of with rows and rows of ready to wear women apparel of jeans, kurtis etc..

Priya, a smartly dressed young women is walking into the area…

Lakshmi, a CCA at the department is folding and stocking the stocks, when she notices the customer walking in..

As per the training, she walks towards the customer and asks “Madam, how may I help you..”?

Priya has just walked in and she is still getting a feel of the place and says, “just looking”.

Then, Priya is left to shop for herself and Lakshmi will wait for to ask for any help.  Priya, then walks through and not having seen any thing in particular, go out of the department.

If only the training had been changed to the following :-

Lakshmi waits for Priya to start looking and then offers help, then she might have asked  a few questions and responded to them. The chances of a conversion would have been better.

What are your experiences in handling customers like Priya ? Share it with us at RetailGurukul@gmail.com

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Reliable Rapid Replenishment

Dear All, 

I would like to bring to your attention an upcoming workshop that Goldratt India is organizing in partnership with Time n Cash, on the following topic: 

Increasing Availability without increasing inventory: TOC Way

Date: November 28, 2012

Venue: Hotel ITC Windsor Manor, Bangalore

Who should attend: Supply Chain Heads, Materials Heads, Production Planning / Production Heads, MDs, CEOs, Decision-makers of organizations

Workshop Details:

One-day workshop on eliminating stock-outs without increasing inventories through the application of Theory of Constraints (TOC)

The workshop would address the following issues:
¦Perennial stock outs of fast moving SKUs
¦Inability to meet sales targets
¦High obsolescence or discount sales
¦High inventory
¦Low inventory turns
¦Crisis mode of operation on regular basis
¦Inadequate or no profits
¦Squeeze on cash

This workshop presents the fundamentals of Reliable Rapid Replenishment – the TOC solution for eliminating all the above pains without increasing inventories.

Please send nominations to ira@timencash.com or call on +91 96320 18261 in case of any clarifications.
or me shivaram 9036036524

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Up selling skills

As a sales person, the first responsibility is to make the first sale. Then, to make the second sale and so on.

The best example that I have come across on Upselling goes like this...( it is an extract from the book Entrepedia by Prof. Nandini Vaidyanathan, a Mentor and Coach to over 500 mentees, including this author).

Quote...

A week before Christmas, the Wal Mart store in Denver, USA was gearing up for the big Christmas sale. It had hired close to a hundred people in Sales and the HR Manager was exhausted. Just then a  young sardar boy walked in saying he was looking for a job. The HR Manager said that he had just finished hiring and there was no vacancy.

But the boy was persistent and would not take no for an answer. That's when Sam Walton walked in and the boy went up to him and said,"Sir, I have just come from India and I need a job. I will come at whatever time you ask me to come tomorrow and I will work till I'm required to. At the end of the day, if you are not happy with my performance, you don't have to pay me a cent. But please give me the one chance.".

Walton perhaps saw some spark in the boy, so he asked him to report at 8.15 the next morning and work till 8.15 at night.

The next night Walton went in search of the boy and found him wrapping the shift up. So he asked him: "Young man, how was your day ? How many sales did you make ? "The boy diffidently replied:" It was ok , I made one sale."

Walton said:" On an average, each of our sales people makes 30-45 sales per shift. Just before Christmas, it is as high as 65-70. If you have managed to make only one sale pre-Christmas, you are obviously not good enough. I'm sorry but I don't think we can hire you."

Walton was about to walk away when something made him pause and ask: "What was the value of the sale?".

The boy replied :" One hundred thousand dollars."

Now it was Walton's turn to do a double-take. He asked the boy: "One hundred thousand dollars ? What did you sell? ".

The boy said,"Oh ! A customer came in wanting to buy a small fishing hook, I sold him a set of large ones and some bait. Then I told him, 'Since you bought so much of fishing equipment, why don't you go upstream and catch some really big ones?'

The customer said that it was a very good idea but he didn't have a boat. So I told him, 'That is not a problem, we have a lovely boat,and we can sell it to you.Then I told him, Now that you have the boat, why don't you go to the woods that the river leads to and camp the night? We will even throw in some Budweiser Beer for you '.

The customer said,  he loved the idea, except that he did not have any camping equipment. So I told him not to worry, that we have some wonderful ones that we could sell him. He looked at all that he had shopped and said," I have done so much shopping, how will I carry all of this with me?' and I told him ' Don't you worry, we have an awesome 4X4 truck and we would be more than happy to sell it to you ".

Walton then asked him :" Are you seriously trying to tell me that a man came to buy fishing hook and you sold him a boat, camping equipment and a truck?"

The boy replied: No sirjee, the customer came in saying he had a headache and wanted a pill for it. I told him fishing was a good way to get rid of the headache.

What was it this boy saw that the other hundred people in the store did not ?

The boy saw opportunity.

Did he only see the opportunity ? No, he also cashed on it.

Did he only cash on it ? No, he even created it !

Unquote...

Do you have any such incident to share with us ?

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Why is after sales service so bad in India ?

3 problems in 3 weeks ! Our washing machine, the fridge and even the water filter and have had problems . In fact two of them are even under an annual maintenance plan costing us 1000's of rupees each year.

Yet, the service we have got from each of the companies, the first is a famous MNC, the second an equally famous Indian company, the third is known for its door to door sales people who pioneered water filters.

Yet, there are some TV manufacturers like Samsung who are offering 10 years warranty for the first time !

On the other side of the sales cycle, I saw full page advertisements today with gifts and prizes worth Rs. 6 to 10 crores from retailers as part of the Diwali Scheme.

Does it make sense for an unhappy consumer point of view, to ask me to buy their products when they cannot even service existing products ?

Every one is in a hurry to sell more and more to achieve their targets. Yet, the after sales service is so bad. The entire arrangement is outsourced, the mechanics are hardly trained on courtesy, on the products or even on time management. After repeated appointments, they come shabbily dressed, cant trouble shoot nor have adequate spares to support .

With each of these products are first time savers, the companies have done nothing to offer temporary replacements even at a cost.

Will the companies first look within existing customers , solve their pain points and service those who are already customers rather than just chase new customers with bigger and bigger prizes ?

Shivaram

Friend, Philosopher and Guide to Retailers.



Whirlpool, Godrej and Acqaguard. pl contact us !

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