March FAQ — Initiatives or Practices for Improved Customer Satisfaction?

One Friday each month, I dedicate the post to looking at some questions I have heard recently from developing leaders. Sharing those questions and my thoughts about them is a way for me to spread the information to as many leaders and future leaders as possible. If you have a question about leadership, or just a situation you would like some additional insight on, please email me at Effective Retail Leader. Let’s take a look at this week’s question.

I want to grow my business and improve how customers shop my store. Can you share any specific initiatives or practices that significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty?

Customer service or satisfaction is a great topic. There can be so much debate on what good looks like, and it often varies based on industry and customer expectations of the brand. However, there are some fundamental components that apply to every business. What I like about this question is it’s about the growth of the business, not just the service. It is easy to get caught in the trap of improving customer satisfaction scores. Scores rarely really matter outside your internal conversations or some tracking report. The real scoreboard for customer satisfaction is the strength of your business. Do people come back to buy again, do they spend more while they are there, and do they tell others of their experience in a way that encourages them to try for themselves? That is true customer satisfaction measurement.

So, what do you do to get to that level? I would start by defining what great should look like in your location. From your perspective, take all the barriers off, and capture what would a perfect shopping experience look like for your customer? What would they see, what would they feel, what would they hear? Capture as much detail as possible to be able to bring those things to life over time. Once you define your vision of excellence, you can share it with your team and begin to build the steps necessary to achieve that outcome.

Experience your store the way your customer does. This can be difficult since you work there, everyone knows you, and you already have some preconceived ideas of what is happening. But try to take a step back and see it through your customer’s eyes. Or, shop another store within your district (if you’re a chain of stores). If that is not an option, try visiting a competitor or similar business and take notes on what the experience is like. Capture the good and the bad pieces; both play a role in how you can bring that back to your store. How do you replicate the good things, how do you ensure you’re not doing the bad things you noticed?

You have to be willing to be brutally honest with yourself and your team. There will be things you experience that you know are bad. They may even seem embarrassing that they are happening. It can be easy to “explain them away” to help protect yours or your team’s feelings. Don’t get stuck in that trap. This isn’t about beating yourself up or anyone else, it’s about improvement. We can only improve if we’re honest with what we are seeing.

Begin to introduce new ideas and behaviors with your team. Take this step by step and slowly at first. Trying to change everything all at once rarely works out. Declaring that you are changing how you serve customers and giving the team ten new things they need to do will be overwhelming and likely frustrating. Start small and build on the successes. Spend a lot of time observing and coaching. Catch people doing things right and recognize those behaviors and how they connect to your new goals. On the flip side, coach the new behaviors, model them, and take time to practice. Always tie it back to why this can help them be more successful in their role. Great service only comes from great employee engagement. How you treat your team will define how they provide service to your customers.

As you achieve those small steps forward to your vision, you can add new pieces on that compliment what you’ve already done. In time, you’ll find that your customers seem happier in the store. You’ll also see crucial measures like the average order value going up, more frequently in visits, and plenty of new faces who say, “my friend told me about this store, I wanted to check it out.” That is when you know that your service initiatives are turning into growth initiatives.

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