Times are tough for small businesses at the moment, and especially brick-and-mortar businesses. Still-rising overhead costs meet increased import costs to make profitability much harder – resulting in the closure of many businesses over the winter months.
While these costs are out of the average business owner’s control, there are other things that remain well within their control – one of which being the customer experience. Enhancing the customer experience can have a real impact on the profitability of a store location, but what could be done to this end?
Cultivating an Atmosphere
An essential aspect of creating the perfect customer experience is the atmosphere of your location. Atmosphere is dictated by a number of factors and variables, from store layout to staff demeanour and even the smell of the location. Controlling as much of these as possible can help you make your visitors feel more at ease.
Facilitating a positive work culture within your location is one way to achieve this. Happy, engaged workers make a location much more pleasant to be in by virtue – and all the better if your team are friendly with one another. Keeping on top of cleaning duties can ensure the location never looks unpresentable, and well-placed aspect lighting can make the premises feel more comfortable (whether brighter or more atmospheric).
Providing Amenities
If the atmosphere of your location is a passive way to generate positive customer experiences, then there might be active ways in which you can approach the same result. By bringing your customers into that atmosphere through certain forms of engagement, you can make them comfortable for the duration of their visit.
The forms this should take vary from store to store. For simple retail environments, offering shoppers needing a rest a comfortable place to sit is a simple but effective way to meet a range of needs. For retail environments where visitors might be spending some time – such as car dealerships and boutique clothing retailers – your offerings could extend to hot drinks like green tea or coffee, and complementary biscuits.
Hairdressers are an excellent example of positive customer experience in action, with many fitting barista-grade espresso machines to provide quality hot drinks – and even stocking alcoholic beverages like prosecco to truly pamper their visitors.
Engagement vs. Frustration – a Fine Line
There are also ways you can address customer service in order to directly improve customer experience; indeed, this is arguably the most important part of the equation. Positive and pro-active customer service is a great way to maximise sales, but overbearing policies can lead customers to feel rushed and even uncomfortable.
As such, a careful balance should be struck between assisting customers and imposing on them. Your visitors should have the space to browse and deliberate in their own time, with staff on hand to answer queries and guide thinking whenever appropriate. This can be a tough balance to strike at the best of times, and is a great illustration of the importance of staff training overall.
