By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting
How about taking your clients wants and needs into consideration and making the shopping experience that much more pleasurable for them?
I am not a natural shopper. To be honest, I absolutely hate shopping. For me wandering around the shops picking things up to put them down again because they are not quite right is a complete waste of time and only serves as an irritation. So being able to locate exactly what was advertised in the right colour and in the right size without a huge fuss is always first prize.
So remove all the difficulties and ‘red tape’ for your clients. If you’ve advertised it, make sure that you have sufficient stock. Make sure it is visible and that your clients have easy access to it. Putting it on the top shelf which means that I have to find a ladder to get to it is not a good idea and only means that I will walk out without making the purchase.
Make sure that you have sufficient staff to help the customers. Making me wait for hours because you don’t have sufficient staff to process the sale, will result in no sale from me. The frustration of waiting and endless queuing will make me walk out.
Don’t ask customers to complete pages and pages of questions. I am very aware of identity fraud and I don’t like to give my personal details to all and sundry.
Don’t ask me to ‘come back later’ or ‘come back this afternoon’ or ‘come back next month’. I don’t have the time or the inclination to go backwards and forwards to your shop/office.
Do ask me if I would like something else if you don’t have the exact item that I am looking for, but if I say ‘No Thank You’ don’t try and manipulate me into buying something that I don’t really want. You will not only lose the sale, but the customer as well.
Don’t try and engage me in a conversation where you try and tell me your whole life story. As much as you may feel that your story is very interesting/exciting/humorous (insert what you would like here), quite frankly, I am here to purchase something, nothing else and quite honestly, I am probably not interested at all. I will walk out in the middle of your story – you will think I am rude and in all probability, I will never come back to your store/office to buy anything again – just in case you try and bore me to death again.
Don’t tell me about all of your difficult clients – I have often been told that I a difficult client! I don’t see it like that at all. As far as I am concerned, I am very easy going . . . as long as you give me exactly what it is that I want! By telling me about your difficult clients, you are telling me that you do not meet the needs of your clients and/or their expectations and I will not want to ‘share’ their experience.
If I ask a question that you don’t know the answer to, don’t try and waffle your way through and give me useless, incorrect information. Rather be honest and tell me that you ‘don’t know’. Ask me if I would like to wait until you find out the answer or offer to call me with the relevant information as soon as you have found the answer. Then actually call me!
Do always make sure that you are hygienic in your personal capacity. If you have body odour, bad breath or dirty fingernails, I will walk out.
Remember that word of mouth is a very powerful medium and that negative or bad referrals travel faster and to more people than good ones.
Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za
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