When it comes to keeping your retail business afloat you need to use all the tricks of the trade that you have available to you. This is especially important in today’s digital society, where more and more people are shopping online and the numbers of people visiting the high streets has decreased.
There are simple ways in which you can adjust your retail setting or make additions that will have a positive impact on your customers experience in your retail setting.
Customer Care
Training your staff in customer care and the right ways to deal with difficult customers is paramount to any business. Not only will this have an impact on your customers but will also help with your staff wellbeing. As well as following standard customer service your company may want to bring in your own professional standards for dealing with employees, such as ways in which they are to be greeted in the store as well as the response time that you expect customers to be spoken to etc.
Environment
The environment around you has a big impact on your behaviour and this is no different when it comes to our buying habits. If you feel comfortable in a store, welcomed by the staff and it has a clean and welcoming feel to it you are more likely to dwell in the store and make a purchase. Stores that can increase the dwell time of their customers have a statistically better chance of converting these people into buyers and then to loyal customers than those businesses where people spend less time. You can encourage customers to remain in your store for longer by looking at the layout of the store, the Music for Business that you are playing and any smells that are present. Appealing music and scents appeal to our senses and will see us naturally wanting to spend more time in the store as well as producing emotional responses that will see us remembering the brand even after we have left the premises.
Accessibility
It is important to think about how people will move around your store, both from a disability point of view and also from an accessibility angle. Even for those who do not have mobility issues, a cluttered store can be off putting as you try carefully to move your way around, without knocking things off the shelves. A customer who has a bad experience is unlikely to return and you can be sure that they will probably tell their friends that they had a bad experience as well.