Retailers, pay close attention - this will be on the final exam.
Back-to-school season is upon us, the yearly ritual where parents nationwide bustle through aisles to ensure their child is well equipped to march back into the foray of academia. This annual refuel – the pit stop in a child’s lifetime of learning – arms students with no shortage of freshly sharpened lead #2s, pristinely chiseled Crayolas, candy-colored protractors, and lots of paper (or iPads).
This presents an incredible opportunity to retailers, who have access to a 72 billion dollar revenue pool during back-to-school season. Traditional retail moguls such as Walmart, Target, Apple, and L.L. Bean are common destinations for back-to-school shoppers, and offer special discounts and promotions. However, according to international service expert Chip Bell, true customer retention requires much more than discounts.
For retailers cognizant of long-term retention, business strategy needs to be focused on innovative customer service. “Customers will remember how you made them feel,” says Bell, “long after they have forgotten how you met their need. So make that feeling one of surprise and delight.” Promoting discounts as a sole strategy, it seems, is comparable to cramming for a test: you will only retain for the short term. To keep customers coming back, more commitment to the experience is required.
Bell, author of the best-seller “The 9 and ½ Principles of Innovative Service” says that innovative customer service is not about additive value; it is about a truly unique creation, one that the customer does not expect. In theme with the pre-scholastic season, Bell shares 3 short customer strategies for providing a consistently surprising experience to customers.
- The Lunch Box Strategy: On the first day of school, most parents put an unexpected surprise in their kid’s lunch box—a candy bar or cookie. Just like the “free prize inside” made Cracker Jack a megahit, look for simple, unexpected ways to surprise your customers. Bell shares of a recent personal example, “When I had a pair of pants pressed at a hotel, the housekeeper brought my pants to my guest room, and with them a package of logoed stays for my shirt collars!”
- The “Everything Shiny” Strategy: Back-to-school includes a lot of colorful new things—new crayons, new books, new clothes. It is a sensory delight that ramps up the excitement with the fun of seeing old friends and making new ones. It is time to ramp up the sensory world of your customers by adding compelling eye-ear-nose candy. Bell says to consider this: “If Disneyworld or Cirque du Soleil were in charge of your customer’s experience, how would it change?”
- The Monogrammed Strategy: Bell says that first thing you probably did with new books was put your name in the inside. It was also on your lunch box, your notebooks, and your locker. Young kids were eager to show off their ability to write their name. He finishes by saying that customers enjoy a personalized service too. “Find ways to use your customer’s name, and build their experience around what is most important to them,” he concludes.
These three examples are drawn from Chip Bell’s latest book, “The 9 and ½ Principles of Innovative Service,” now celebrating its one year publication anniversary. The book focuses on the importance of maintaining a creative spirit in tough economic times, and provides a number of examples of companies that provide what customers expect, and then take the extra value-addition step to implement a more innovative and memorable customer experience. Retailers who do this best can be sure to earn an easy “A” this back-to-school season.