Benjamin Franklin once famously said, “Beware of little expenses—a small leak will sink a great ship.” While most often applied to financial lessons around limiting expenses, it is also more than apt when it comes to your consumer experience within your store.
If a ship is sinking from leaks, there are two approaches to solving the problem. You can run around your store trying to fix every leak that has appeared, or you can proactively build a ship that doesn’t leak in the first place. It takes a lot of discipline, but it can certainly be done.
Several years ago, a retailer friend and past president of the non-profit trade association SENPA, Francis Drennan, the owner of Manna Grocery & Deli in Tuscaloosa, AL, shared with me the book Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards, by Michael Levine.
This book directly aligns with the Franklin quote in that it establishes a thesis that often little things can have the greatest impact on your business. If you have a broken window in the corner of your store, a consumer could assume that your store isn’t financially healthy. It could make them uncomfortable. Maybe they don’t come in because they assume your store is dirty or otherwise unkempt. A single window can cost you a customer.
Many things within your business can be broken windows, figuratively speaking. A rude staff member, problems with out-of-stocks, dirty bathrooms, overly strict policies for things like returns, all can contribute to a negative perception of the retail experience. The challenge is that these things are most often missed amongst the hustle and bustle of day-to-day business management.
Mind the Details
I had the opportunity to do a training at Manna, and I could see that the staff lived and breathed an attitude of paying attention to the details. The bathrooms, for example, are spotless. They will soon have been in business for 45 years, so this effort has likely paid back in dividends.
The best thing you can do to maintain this level of discipline is to create systems that help you audit the customer experience.
Once a month, walk outside your store and go to the street. Look at your building from afar just as a potential customer would who has never come in before. Are there any maintenance issues that you’ve been putting off? Is your window signage faded and old?
Most importantly, though, does the outside of your store communicate that which makes you most special and competitive in your community? Are your values on display? Will it be clear to the consumer what benefits you can provide to them if they come in and shop? How you can help them?
When you come back in, study the foot traffic through your store. How do people typically walk from section to section? Is it seamless?
I was in a retail store recently that had great flow, where consumers naturally went from one section to the next in a way that exposed them to many different product categories and offerings. It was nearly perfect. I say nearly because about halfway through my journey, there was a large pole in the middle of the aisle holding up the ceiling. A customer with a shopping cart at that point would be forced to turn around—their journey over.
Pay attention to the logic of the foot traffic in your store. It is not a mystery why most grocery stores put milk in the back corner. Items that are popular can be a draw to encourage grazing throughout the store. If milk is up front, consumers may just come in, buy milk and leave.
I always encourage focusing on newness along the journey, especially near the entrance to your store. When you have a new product, you want to do everything you can to get your customers hooked on that product as soon as possible. The more customers who try the product once will be more likely to come back and buy it again and again. Think of it like an annuity. Don’t let newness be hidden on your shelves or tucked away in a corner.
Then, create a checklist to routinely audit the customer experience. Consider a survey that you periodically give customers not at the end of their journey, but at the start. It can be designed almost like a scavenger hunt. At the end, if they fill it out and turn it in, give them a small discount for their trouble. This could include questions along the way like “How easy was it to find what you were looking for on the shelf?” or “Did you see XYZ new item while you were shopping in the store?” My favorite question is often a simple one … “Why did you come in today?” Ask yourself—do you have data on why customers shop with you? It can be invaluable to build your marketing message.
Another question that I think has a lot of value whenever you are talking to a customer is the opposite of what you might expect. Instead of asking, “Why do you shop with us?” consider the opposite: “Why don’t you shop with us?” This could be about a specific item … “Why do you only buy supplements here and none of your groceries?” or “How come you don’t shop with us more often than you do?” If delivered with a smile and warm turn of phrase, you might be surprised at the responses that you get.
Store maintenance is important, and regular routines are critical. While keeping a bathroom clean may seem commonplace (and it is scary how often it is not), there are many other maintenance tasks required to keep a store ship-shape. For example, how often are shelves dusted behind the products? (Especially the low and dark ones that are hard to reach!) Watch out for faded posters, outdated products, dirty walls and clutter.
Out of Store Experiences
Like the in-store experience, the out-of-store experience can be equally worthy of auditing. If a customer reaches out to you with a message on social media or sends you an email, how quickly will you respond? No one likes to be kept waiting.
At Enzymedica, we have a team of individuals who manage our social media and another team who manages customer service during normal business hours. They are incredibly well-educated and talented individuals. However, at 11:30 at night, if a consumer sends us a concern via social media, my phone is logged into our accounts and typically I will personally respond to them—regardless of the time of night. I may not be able to solve their problems immediately, but I make sure that they are recognized and heard. In our business, it is a small thing that helps to separate us from our competition. Personalized service matters.
Have you ever tried to call your store? What is that experience like? How many rings does it take to get an answer? Does a staff member say “Yeah, what’s up?” or do they say, “It’s a great day at Jane’s Health Food Hut, how can I help you today?” These things all leave a lasting impression.
When it comes to your staff, the best way to avoid a broken window is through proactive training. Very often, stores will train on product knowledge, but it is far rarer to train on the business of retailing and customer service. It’s not enough for every customer to hear “welcome in” or “have a nice day.” You really need to work with your staff on providing exceptional service that reflects your store mission and values. Without a regular training schedule, inevitably these things will start to fade or otherwise go to the wayside.
Often, another form of a broken window can be over-selection of products. While it is normal nature to jump right in with every customer and ask, “How can I help you?” consider a few times a month instead just watching how customers peruse your shelves. Often, you’ll find that they quickly get overwhelmed by selection and may even leave. (Of course, stop them before they do).
Clear signage throughout your store is critical, and some brands even offer signage packages and destination center programs to improve shopability of core categories. These programs are a good idea because they can make all the difference in helping a consumer navigate a sea of products.
It also doesn’t hurt to take Ben Franklin’s quote a bit literally. Do you have small leaks in your store’s finances that need to be addressed? Take the time to review your expenses and identify areas of opportunity to trim costs, not necessarily for the purpose of saving money, but instead for efficiency. In some cases, you may choose to reinvest those expenses in other activities that are better suited for improving the customer experience or reaching new consumers.
One of the most common culprits for this is advertising. Have you been running the same ad in the same newsletter or pamphlet for years? Maybe the creative should be updated. Perhaps instead, you should stop that advertising for a few months and try something else.
Once you have fixed the leaks in your ship, the opportunity opens to really improve on the customer experience and create offerings that make your store feel special.
For example, many stores are still maintaining and building on curbside pickup programs in a post-COVID world. If you offer a program like this, consider making it better. For example, could curbside customers get special coupons encouraging them to come inside next time (where hopefully they will discover new products)?
There are many ways to improve on customer experience. The biggest thing, though, is simply to start. Build customer experience into the discipline of your management strategy, the ethos of your employees, and then have mechanisms to track this experience to make sure you are gaining ground in everything that you do. Adaptability is critical to any business to survive and thrive, and by putting the customer first in everything you do, you will already be leaps and bounds ahead of many of your competitors.VR
Ryan Sensenbrenner leads marketing at Enzymedica, Inc. His expertise spans a range of marketing fields, from retail to ecommerce, and he maintains a special emphasis in branding and customer centricity. He has worked with retailers across the country to help them better market the strengths of their businesses, driving increased revenue and brand recognition within their communities. In addition to his role at Enzymedica, Sensenbrenner serves on SENPA’s Board of Directors, and is currently completing the Chief Marketing Officer certification program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.
