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Archive for March, 2010

Excuse Me, Do You Work Here?  No, I Fold Clothes

In an article by Jennifer Saranow in the WSJ , Gap Inc. says it has trained “hundreds of thousands” of Gap store employees in the art of folding since the late 1980s.

The folding craze at Gap began in the 1980s when Millard Drexler, who as a boy had sorted towels at his uncle’s towel-delivery service, took the helm as president of the Gap Stores division. Mr. Drexler and his team put tables in Gap stores and had employees decorate them with piles of folded shirts and sweaters. The goal was to better emphasize certain items and color choices and make it easier for customers to sort through clothes.

These former employees now fold their clothing meticulously even going so far as to not be able to shop without straightening up retailers’ folded displays. It isn’t clear whether the next generation of retailers will produce so many compulsive folders.

Contrast that to when I was putting myself through college and the number one thing the seasoned department manager at the Broadway taught me, “Its about selling the merchandise to our customers.”

A pretty display is one thing but it is passive. Imagine if Gap and all the trainers who spent hours getting the perfect crease had instead been learning how to sell the merchandise.

BTW, the trend now is to leave the displays looking a bit messed up – it looks like people were interested in the merchandise rather than a museum.

Whose Brand Is It Anyway? How To Stifle A Business: Us Versus Them

One of my first clients was a Best Western hotel nearly twenty years ago and I’m going to share with you about them to illustrate a common challenge to retailers, distributors and manufacturers.

When I got involved the Best Western brand was in a major battle with their independent owners. They knew that a scattered mash-up of properties could not hope to compete against the newer arrivals like Courtyard and Hampton Inn so they came up with new design standards. They established a timetable and fined properties if they did not comply. Let’s back up a bit…

In the beginning over sixty years ago M. K. Guertin visited other motels and inspected them. If they met his muster, he included them in his travel guidebook. Motels in the book then asked visitors where they were traveling and then offered to make reservations at one of the “approved” motels.

What had happened over the years was some of the original properties never updated. That meant the brand of Best Western could promise a clean, comfortable room with certain amenities and a traveler could be disappointed at an individual property. (Nowadays travelers would rail on Tripadvisor or Yelp but then, it would just funnel back to the Brand manager.)

The only way to get control of that was to implement stringent standards across the spectrum.

After awhile a group of owners got together to challenge Best Western’s new policies. I saw letters that screamed, “Whose customers are they?” Their point was they were their customers, not Best Western’s – that they alone were the brand.

An adversarial relationship ensued. Most dropped out but not before creating an “us versus them” mentality and taking their own focus off of serving the guest and building the brand together. (Not until they solved that could they grow the chain to become the largest hotel chain in the world with consistent positive word-of-mouth.)

Could that be you or your company?

I think it starts from a “take” mentality. The dealer will use the brand however they want, discount it, sell off of it or buy enough from one distributor or manufacturer – cherry picking really – enough to be important but use another for the rest of their orders. I’ve seen this from restaurant delivery all the way down to gift stores.

Here’s the thing. If it is an “us v them” how are you going to build either brand? You have to commit to the other party or suspicion and faithlessness ensues.

If we’ve learned anything from the housing bust its that you can’t take customers, retailers, distributors or even manufacturers for granted.

While “us versus them” is a common thread on Cable – everything from Project Runway to American Idol and from CNN to MSNBC and FOX, if we don’t change the discussion, we all lose.

What do you think?

Retail Sales Training: The Difference Between I can and I won’t

I was on the sales floor, conducting a Retail Selling Boot Camp for a client in Minneapolis recently when I came to a roadblock. I was coaching a young woman on the new greeting we were going to use. She half-heartedly tried again and again and kept saying after each, “I can’t do this.” Continue reading Retail Sales Training: The Difference Between I can and I won’t »

Online Shopping Bombshell: Major Consumer Product Manufacturer Closes the Blinds

Manufacturers took a lot of flack when they opened distribution channels like big box stores and sold to online retailers. As a businessman, who could blame them? To grow sales you need new ways of delivering your products to more customers.

That’s why the announcement by Hunter Douglas Window Fashions Monday was such a bombshell. In an email President & CEO Marv Hopkins said in part, “We have made the decision to cease sales of all Hunter Douglas brand products through the large and growing Internet sales channel, effective June 1, 2010. By discontinuing Internet sales, Hunter Douglas will lose significant sales volume in the near term. We are confident, however, that this policy will best serve our goal of preserving and enhancing our brand image and reputation and will also lead to far greater sales through our Aligned Dealer network over the long term.”

This is a game changer. All we’ve been hearing about lately is the growth of online shopping and by extension shopping via mobile. With this move Hunter Douglas has said, ‘Even if it hurts sales, we’ll control our brand, our standards and customer satisfaction.’ They have embraced the expertise of their extensive dealer network and in particular their top-tier Gallery dealers who have invested tens of thousands of dollars in fixtures where you can see all of their products in actual windows, sales training, e-learning and product knowledge. This is their reward.

Hunter Douglas sold nearly $2.3 billion in 2009, this isn’t some little company with a few employees.

Online shopping is frequently only about price, not fit or service. Hunter Douglas’ independent bricks and mortar dealers were the ones performing the hard work of explaining to the customer what their options were and then being rewarded fixing possible mistakes when the customer ordered online. They have expanded their dealer tools and web presence to drive business to their bricks and mortar dealers.

To help you see the impact of such a decision, look at this like Starbucks eliminating all of their licensing agreements with places like United airlines or various supermarkets so you could only find Starbucks in their coffeehouses that used water filtration, the best brewing equipment and had extensive training. They wouldn’t let others undermine their quality name. You can learn more about their strategy from these quotes from Hunter Douglas VP of Merchandising Joe Jankoski.

Online isn’t the begin all and end all, it still only represents about 9% of total retail dollars. Bricks and mortar stores aren’t going away and here is a company willing to stake their future to the dealers who made them successful. Other manufacturers need to look at this because their brands can be commoditized as they are reduced to price and the brand cannot manage that online.

Maybe there’s a lesson for your bricks and mortar stores as well. Instead of chasing the fickle coupon clipping, Internet scouring cheapskates who often cause more problems then they attract, focus on your core customers. Reward them with the integrity of your brand providing an exceptional experience and hold them tight so they know their number one priority is them – not some faceless keystroke.

Customer Service: Keep Your Opinions To Yourself

I had a stopover in Chicago last night. Tired, Boingo wi-fi down, what else was there to do but eat? No more chocolate, no popcorn – a fresh handmade pretzel – perfect.

I walked over to the counter and ordered a plain one. “$3.49 Sir.” I hadn’t expected it to be that much so I simply said in my kidding self, “It better be a great pretzel for that price.” The guy answered, “I can’t speak to that – I don’t like pretzels.”

I took the product and walked away. The pretzel was thin, warm but kinda stale. It’s almost like the kid knew it wasn’t up to snuff.

I then went back to the United counter to see if my upgrade had been cleared. With a few strokes of the keys the agent pronounced, ” I can’t deal with this new crap we got to do. I just can’t do it for you. Where is the code I’m supposed to do? I can’t deal with this.” And on and on. She finally called another woman over who showed how to retrieve the information by entering the word “ALL.” Not before she had processed all her frustration in front of me.

News for managers: we don’t care what your employees have to go through to help the public and if they don’t use the product, they probably won’t have any respect for it being made or delivered properly.

What would have been the right thing to say for the pretzel guy? “We sell a lot of ‘em and if it isn’t the best pretzel you’ve eaten, we’ll either get you another or refund your purchase.” What should the United gate agent have said? “Will you excuse me for a moment? I need to get help with this.”

How have simple courtesy and professionalism been obliterated? A world where the far right is on TV and in the papers red-faced screaming about the injustices they have to deal with and the far left is on TV and in the papers red-faced screaming about the injustices they have to deal with treating issues like they were people.

And you and your employees are watching it all – confirming every bad thing you may have thought on the politcal spectrum – not to inform but to remain part of the hive.

I entered a local drugstore a couple weeks ago to hear a woman bemoaning healthcare reform in the same soundbites as she had heard on Fox that morning. The pharmacist came out from behind the glass to loudly add his two cents, “What do you expect from a Muslim not even born in the US.?”

No wonder people bemoan customer service! How can you throw the switch from working yourself up about something you’ve seen on TV – equating any conflict to a personal dig – and then walk in to your store or restaurant and put the needs of your customers first?

How to deal with all of this? Tell your employees day one: keep your frustrations and opinions to yourself.

You can learn more about growing your business here.