Engaging with the customer

“Can I help you?”

“Doing okay over here?”

“How’s everything?”

We’ve all been on the shopper’s end of these low-value contact questions in stores, restaurants and whatever chain retailer trains its associates with the blunt instrument of “engage the customer.” It’s gotten to the point where such expressions are so empty, they’ve become little more than verbal tics on the part of employees—rote recitations they almost cease to be conscious of even asking.

And there’s a perfect synchronicity to this, since customers are barely conscious of these low-impact greetings, either. In our work with retailers, we hear this literally thousands of times. As an example, associates are typically trained and expected by management to greet the entering customer. Too often, this requirement gets translated by employees into saying “hi.” From a courtesy standpoint, this may sound better than no acknowledgment at all, though we’ve yet to see a higher buy or conversion rate when comparing customers who get a “hi” to those who enter with the absence of any greeting. Not surprisingly, most customers don’t even acknowledge this greeting and walk right beyond the associate saying it—not even saying “hi” back. That’s a big bowl of nothing for a key component of a customer engagement initiative.

“Doing okay over here?” is another low-percentage expression, a perfect invitation for the customer to say yes, fine, just looking.

Once we diagnose how interactions like this are working or aren’t with video and audio behavioral analytics, we provide retailers with the approach to make contacts count more—not in a theoretical, one-off way, but with a selling model that can be scaled.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on how retailers are pushing enhanced sales tactics to drive top-line growth. The realization to bring about more sophisticated training is sinking in, which comes from the realization these chains have a way to go before they can gain more traction on the sales floor.

Home Depot is doing something simple and smart by training cashiers (sometimes the only store personnel who shoppers interact with) to ask customers if they found everything they were looking for—and if not, to call the aisle to determine whether the item is in stock (the secret to success will be if the cashier has better luck finding someone than the customer perhaps did—but the idea of the cashier backstopping the sales process is a good one). While “did you find everything you need?” runs the risk of becoming a new verbal tic at Home Depot, it certainly has a fighting chance of success because the inquiry is offered at an important moment of truth, and requires a specific action step for the cashier to take should the customer be wanting.

Reports of Sears’ death slightly exaggerated (for now)

Not many people are seeing the softer side of Sears these days, or the harder side for that matter. Tech Ticker reports that Jeff Matthews of hedge fund RAM Partners says the much anticipated Sears turnaround story may never happen because Sears Holding Corp. Chairman Edward Lampert doesn’t know how to run retail. Barron’s recently ran a story pointing out Sears’ many problems -- sagging sales, shabby stores, inattentive service, uncompetitive pricing – and suggesting the company’s stock price could fall another 50%. Beyond frightening. Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter wrote an earnings note titled, “Put A Fork In It.”

Are the naysayers right? Is Sears done?

Sears has certainly gotten close to the max in cutting costs – there have been reports of only one sales associate per floor. In a world with where national big box stores provide competitively priced appliances on the one hand, and local dealers lavish personal attention and customer service on the other, Sears needs to be competitive on some dimension to survive, since there’s no net over the abyss of the middle.

Sears could focus on a smart reinvention its stores. The company still has some fabulously reputable brands, like Kenmore, DieHard, Craftsman, and Land’s End. Sears has actually made a number of good decisions lately – a plan to start selling toys and to offer a Christmas Club card, where consumers add value beforehand and get a 3% bonus on the funds. This has some old-fashioned, Big Book Catalog-style appeal. On the 21st century front, Sears’ MyGofer experiment, which merges online shopping and the ability to pick items up at a brick and mortar location, might allow Sears to unlock some value of all those Sears and Kmart stores. (But note to Sears: if you’re going to position yourself as a serious Internet player, make sure pranksters can’t rewrite your content and punk the living daylights out of you.)

It’s always hard to see around corners, but it’s an interesting question to ponder: what would a successful Sears look like in five years?

Would you like pantyhose with that ceiling tile? (and other retail oxymorons)

Perhaps you were taught this instructive “stick-to-your-knitting” story of some years ago. It starred an over-eager Home Depot executive who came up with the idea that millions would drop to the bottom line if only the company could see its way to introducing L’Eggs hosiery displays at checkouts in all its stores. After making his case to the top ranks of the company with a convincing argument about potential financial gain and a not-very-convincing plea for the company to use this as a response to the increasing presence of female customers, he was quickly asked to abandon the idea—of course, right after being told to abandon his seat from the meeting. The teachable moment—seized on by the chairman—was that just because you could sell it doesn’t mean you should sell it.

Apparently not everyone has heard this entrenched business lesson—including some more recent Home Depot executives, who two years ago brought about losses with a similarly ill-fated decision to sell flat-screen televisions during the holidays.

This week, Best Buy announced plans to sell patio ware—furniture, fire pits, grills and heaters. It’s their attempt to make up for lost sales in bread-and-butter categories like movies and music.

This has all the makings to be the pantyhose story of 2009. We’ll be watching this one especially closely, as this is a retailer which has done many things right.

Supermarkets used to fall prey all the time to the allure of selling higher-margin items—that turned out not to sell, like television sets.

A recent sighting of candy bars at the checkout of a garden center store struck me as a stretch, and a rather sad attempt to presumably get something back from a decline in boxwood sales.

Unexpected products in the assortment can delight customers. Urban Outfitters does serendipity masterfully. Probably until it was deemed illegal or immoral, Sears stores used to create endless Easter excitement with displays of live baby chicks…..for sale. But these examples are schtick—not fundamental assortment strategies.