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Magnetic lessons from retail

learnpurple associate Stephen Yates takes a look at how you can really push the boundaries on front line service. Having joined from a retail background with Liberty, Habitat and Heals, we think it’s safe to say there is not much Stephen doesn’t know about this subject.

Last month in London we saw the opening of two leading American retailers; Abercrombie & Fitch and the enormous, much hyped natural food store Whole Foods Market on High Street Kensington. As customers, we have had the carpet whisked out from under our feet. Customer expectations have suddenly rocketed. Choice is limitless; people help us to get in line at the rapid cash desks whilst the ‘can do’ attitude is finally seeding itself in the British psyche. This is what we can now come to expect whether shopping, eating out, drinking or sleeping in the latest hotel. As customers, we have been given permission to be more demanding, we can have what we want and won’t settle for less…

As teams become more diverse and the customer more demanding, service standards are changing and changing fast. Having spent my career in high street retail, I am constantly questioning how we can better train the teams that are on the front line. How can we enable people to meet the ‘fluid’ expectations of our customers?

I’m interested in how far we’ve all come over this time to satisfy the client and indeed go beyond their requirements, surprise them and stand out from the crowd.

So what’s at the crux of this challenge and how is it affecting the way we approach training service teams? It’s what I call the ‘magnetic force field of service’. Imagine; we as service providers are like a compass. We all face in one direction, get ready to point one way to meet the customer’s needs. Along comes the customer, the magnet. Just as if we have placed a magnet near a compass, the needle starts spinning around, faster and faster, the direction changes and we are lost!

It’s likely that if you are reading this, most of the time your ‘service compass’ is facing in the right direction. But then maybe every so often the hypothetical magnet comes into play and it’s difficult to keep up with the customer and facing the right direction.

I believe there are two key reasons for this; firstly the customer (magnet) is getting stronger and more demanding every day. Secondly the team meeting the needs of the customer is becoming diverse and more and more unsure on how to react.

So what of those on the front line? Behind the tills, on the reception desk? This is where I believe the key gap is appearing and it could affect all of us. With the acceleration of technology, even those in the service industries are having less and less contact with people. As people communicate by text, email, social networking sites like ‘MySpace’, ‘Beebo’ and ‘Facebook’, just making contact with a stranger can be making a friend for life. There is no longer the need to talk and therein lies an ever increasing challenge to produce enthusiastic teams of people who are confident in interacting with the demanding client.

As someone who has always used change as a positive influence, there are two lessons I am learning from the ‘iPod generation’: move at their speed and perceive from their perception.

Put simply, it’s all thanks to the likes of Whole Foods Market who are pushing our boundaries, pushing our customer’s expectations. Resistance is not an option! We have to keep seeking and pushing for the next stage of service that will be demanded because if we don’t someone else will.

Secondly how we enable people to meet this level of service is about how we engage the participant in new ways, new ways which challenge the delegate to change at the same pace as changing a track on an iPod or ordering a holiday on the internet. Attention spans have shrunk, patience has fused and the customer is waiting – we need to be ‘in their shoes’ – fast.

How can you do this? Our courses have lots of solutions, tools, techniques and best practice examples. I’ll leave you with a thought:

In the Observer this month, John Mackey the CEO and founder of the Whole Foods Market asked: “Are you familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?” When the CEO starts talking about Maslow, we trainers and service providers need to be on our toes. He’ll have the customers demanding to move up the levels of the needs hierarchy next…forget food and shelter…self actualisation is the ‘new black’ in customer service.

11 July 2007