How does your newsagency stand out in the crowd? Whether you are in a small country town or a large capital-city shopping mall, you are in a crowd. Now more than ever, given that everything we sell (except for magazine range), is available in many other places including online.
So, how does your newsagency stand out?
National retail chains spend vast sums of money and time advertising their buying power, convenient locations and friendly service. Their slick ads get into the heads of customers and lead them to think service is good. Newsagents don’t have the funds to promote on the same scale outside our businesses.
We rely on what we do to show off our point of difference and for this to drive word of mouth.
The best competitive strategy for retail I know is to make the shopping experience truly remarkable.
As I travel around the country speaking with newsagents at conferences, workshops and individually, the most common point of difference I am told newsagents have over national retailers is customer service. This is what most newsagents think. They share horror stories they have heard about experiences with national chains – as if these horrow stories make newsagencies look good. I don’t think it works that way.
If customer service is the differentiating factor for newsagencies, we have to ask ourselves: is our customer service truly remarkable? Is this what your customers really think? Is what you think of as your point of difference what your customers actually experience?
In newsagencies, customer expectations are higher than those buying a magazine, a pen or a card in a supermarket or department store. Because customers expect us to be more personal and friendly we have to be better – plus more.
The higher expectations customers have of their experience in a newsagency means that our own goals for remarkable customer service have to be higher.
So, how does your newsagency stand out in the crowd in terms of customer service? We need to challenge each other on this, to lift our game across the country. Whether we like it or not, we are connected by business type and, in most cases, shingle.
I believe what makes us stand out is our staff. Continued investment in training , staff moral and condition means happy and educated staff , and this means happy customers . Our staff need to be able to give our customers an experience that makes us stand out, makes them feel different about their retail experence. We should be able to win every time here when compared to the chain stores. As owners it’s up to us to see our staff are looked after , so in return they look after us.
From a customer point of view it’s good to be able to go to a store and talk to someone who actually knows what they’re on about. Too many times I’ve been to electronic stores/game stores and the staff member who is “helping” me has no clue whatsoever. Some admit that much and find someone who can help, but then there are the others that try bullshit their way to a sale. It makes them look really bad, and also when you catch them on their lies.
I find it good to walk out of my store and try and walk back in as a customer. Is it inviting , can I see stock clearly and well presented, am I greeted with a smile. Are I bring treated special and not taken for granted. A newsagency should spell all these qualities … It’s realy up to us all to make this happen .
Ah, synchronicity… just putting the finishing touches to the (online component of) a Customer Service Module for a certain retail academy.
From a trainer/consultant perspective, the recipe is as follows:
1. Ask the question this blog poses.
2. Answer it honestly. (Set aside your preconceived ideas but really look at it from the customer’s POV (like @aaron)
3. Train for the Skills (7 S framework is handy)
4. Fire/ Recruit for Attitude.
The last step is what people find hardest to do. Especially the firing part. But honestly if someone is doing poorly, and despite the fact that they have the skills / training, then there is nothing the business owner can do but to take drastic action.
Because as Mark postulates – it is the one defining/ differentiating element and needs serious attention.
(PS: IMHO, good customer service is more than greeting the regulars nicely.)
In my own personal experience, one thing I a staff member at a store doing for me was, although they didn’t have the information about a product on hand, they went that extra step of finding out the information for me, and gave a few other options were I could get more information.
I think being helpful in general is a good quality that many sales staff lack. Even more so at supermarkets who prefer to point “It’s in that aisle over there”
Yes, our customer service have to be more than a smile and more than courteous. It has to be remarkable and so much so that it is talked about in positive terms to others.
All that matters here is what others think and say behind our backs.
The expectation from customers in a Newsagency is always premium service and that’s what we have to deliver. How many people do you see dropping a $1 on the counter at Woolies or Coles and walking off? Customer service (or lack therof) at the majors is a talking point for my customers and make it easy for even the average Newsagent to compete with and take advantage of. But I take your point Mark that we need to really shine and show a gaping difference between the two.
For me it’s all about going the extra mile and getting to know the customer outside of the simple supply and charge relationship which may be harder to do in a city Newsagency but easy in a rural one. My wife and I love getting to know our customers and their families and it comes back to us in spades when someone is thinking about where to shop for something that is already available from a number of locations in our town sometimes cheaper than us.
Customers see us having a good time in our shop and I believe it rubs off on our customers. Our customers see us as a pleasant place to shop in even if it’s just for a paper or pack of chewing gum. I am sure we don’t please absolutely everyone so for us that is the never ending challenge.
I remember seeing a training video some years ago on a fish stall in the Pike Street Market in Seattle that showed how customers simply flocked to this shop over all others because they saw the staff having fun and they treated every customer like their family, even strangers. All the staff were interviewed and they all possessed the same attitude. They were all having fun with each other with customers in a place where they are handling smelly fish all day!! I actually visited the shop in the early 90’s (before the I saw the training video) and clearly remember coming away thinking they had a heap of customers in the shop, they were all buying during what was a traditionally a very slow sales period and the staff left an impression on me. By the way they don’t (or didn’t) spend a cent on advertising. It was all word of mouth.
If we could capture and practice some of that magic in this industry I strongly believe it would go a long way to strengthening our locatoin as a go to place for whatever we sell.
Lack of staff moral, motivation and initiative has a definate impact on Customer Service levels. A happy employee who is comfortable in their job is more likely to WANT to serve customers however, too often a positive “customer service” attitude can quickly turn into “customer servitude” and the level of service drops.
I would be interested in knowing what types of things people do to maintain a high level of customer service. Do you have training sessions on a regular basis? Is that customer service training, product training or something else? How do you monitor your customer service level? What do you do when everything seems to be going wrong? How do you go about telling an employee that they need to improve?
For us in a small town, it is more about building relationships with customers rather than just offering good service. Knowing customers by their first name or what lotto they play without even asking are part of having that relationship.
The morning of Ului crossing the coast we had left our house and gone inland and did not open the store that morning. The Sunday Mails were dumped on the footpath before 6am and by the time we got there at about 9:30 there were 4 or 5 customers there standing guard. One lady was actually taking money (over $100)selling the papers. (We have sent her flowers to say thank you) We threw the papers inside and went home to check for damage.
The next day, we had customers coming in with their $2 for a paper that they had taken the previous day. That to me is testament of the relationship we have with our customers. Sure there are ones that took a paper without paying but they would be a far lesser number than the ones that paid.
Customer service has to be real for it be a point of difference. I don’t like many small businesses because they think a smile or a have a nice day is good customer service. IT IS NOT. Good customer service comes from understanding the customer. I think I di but then some days I am sure that I do not.
Mark how about organising a forum where we can discuss customer service?
not much use of understanding your customer with out a smile on your face is there