So I just finished up a course on retail
management and I had a couple “wow” moments on the chapter dealing with
customer service so I decided to blog about the things I have learned! Customer
service in the retail environment is a key component in creating customer satisfaction.
It’s the set of activities and programs undertaken by retailers to make the
shopping experience more rewarding for their customers. 85% of customers said
that they spend and shop more at retailers who provide good service. I would
totally agree with that statistic because I find myself shopping in stores even
if I don’t “need” anything just to support the retailers that really care about
the customers.
I was always taught that it costs a lot more to
acquire a new customer rather than maintaining a present customer but when I
found out that it costs 5 to 15 times more it really put things into
perspective. I then started to think of the places that don’t provide great customer
service and the one place I had in mind was Wal-Mart. I then understood that
discount/warehouse stores don’t provide the best customer service because they
focus a lot of attention on price. When asking the question “How do you feel
about Wal-Mart’s customer service” the majority of people responded with negative
answers. This made me think of how important Service Recovery (listen to the
customer, provide a fail solution and resolve the problem quickly) is because 91%
of dissatisfied customers will never shop there again and on average tell 9
people about their bad experience!
If you work in retail I hope you’ve learned a
little about how important it is to treat your customers with respect!
