All of us are looking for success in our retail businesses. Apart from and beyond everything else, sustainable success requires consistency. What do we mean by that?
We mean being consistently great in all aspects of our retail business.
Short term successes are possible due to some lucky combination of factors. But, we can't rely on lucky combinations. They are too few, and far between.What we need to do is to set the foundations of our business right so that we can repeat our successes consistently.
This also has a profound impact on customer satisfaction. Your customers expect a certain level of performance from you on the basis of the perception you created. By being consistent at your skill set and service levels, you satisfy the minimum expectations.
And if you put a degree of constant improvement process in place, you'll create a winning combination for your retail operation.
At minimum, some of the areas you must deliver on a consistent basis are:
1. Sales Skills (Trained staff on professional retail sales skills)
2. Quick response to all sorts of customer issues (Rapid response procedures in place)
3. Clean, tidy and efficient store environment (Great visual merchandising and maintenance)
4. Streamlined and customer friendly checkout process.
Pretty basic, right? Yet, just wander around the malls and shopping centres and see for yourself how many retailers are failing in consistent delivery of the basics.
